Chinese on Christmas

December in San Francisco and the palm trees are all a bright shade of green. Its sweater season but the sun looks the same as it did in August. What's the word when the line between the sexes is blurred, when theirs no distinguishing characteristics?
Androgynous. It's the same with the weather. T-shirt on thanksgiving, jacket on the 4th of July. The fog casually thrown over the cities shoulders like an old grey petty coat only to be shrugged off in a smile and a wink when the sun comes gushing forth from golden gate park.
The only discern able difference between summer and winter is the changing of the candy display at Walgreens, candy corns to foil wrapped chocolate Christmas trees to candy hearts to pastel peeps, sunrise - sunset.
The twelfth month means that once again the only thing that was lit for Hanukkah was me. That I'll be taking Nicole to my grandmothers house in the east bay on Christmas eve ready to celebrate with my traif side of the family and spending Christmas day in a empty city walking down grant street flanked by strange looking quiet buildings like long winter spruces on a cool winters day. Pretending it doesn't mean anything. That I'm not affected by what I don't have. Only gaining smouldering smirks from the things I do, Tsing Taos and green onion pancakes at House of Nan King, the plush pleather seats at the Century theater, sneaking sips of Irish coffee from a smuggled thermos and a city soley reserved for strolling with my baby arm and arm, recreating album art like a freewheeling Bob Dylan of debauchery and all things incorrigible.
Chinese food for Christmas and coals in my stocking. Making room for New Years, feeling like Hamlet but not fearing for Fortenbras instead only waiting for King George.

Porto Morgado

Burning money like the slobs
in Les miserables
priceless works of arts
Grant, Jackson even Lincolns
rolled up and put away
hidden under tables
next to Safeway cards
burning a hole in the noses of Folsom street
playing pool in the leather bars
searching for that far out anodyne
house parties until dawn
numies and mustache rides
starlight sunsets on a silver platter sighing,
one by one the friends come by
ripping interpol
the lines they go by
not watching, numb, above the world
sitting, thinking
staring, licking
light bulb fantasies of a good idea
cosmic far out gangsta five
11th street vision quest
inner city diatribe
blowing in is easier then blowing
up
freedom is a Franklin and an alibi

Sundays

Sundays in San Francisco are similes like a great white shark setting upon a seal at Pier 39 spraying blood and gore on all the hapless passersby, grimaces ever so slowly being turned upside down. Sundays are for spending all of Saturdays money and toasting to Mondays hangovers. Sundays are for sitting in the new place in Soma , questioning the legality of my living there. Sundays are for stints in the mission, Italian car chases, endless games of sorry and the loss of our mustachioed friend who walks the moonlit streets of Polk , all the weight on his left leg, heavy Bolivian accent. Sundays are sombreros and party socks, hooking up the laptop to the stereo and daring the neighbors to call the cops. Sundays are missed movie times and loose change get lost in the jukebox. Sundays are soliloquies written out in Monday mornings over bright lights awake only because the liver is an incredible organ. Sundays are shooting pool with my baby and shooting the shit with my best friend. Sundays are skipping the bus to take a cab. For sifting through endless hours of Internet radio, singing along with the rainbow connections. Sipping slowly to soak it all in. Savoring every last drop. For saints the lords house has happy hour specials, $5 fernet and buckets of hanger 1. Sundays are bloody mary's and being bloodied from too many mimosas stumbling away from lime in a blur of badlands and boy bar. Staggering around like being lost at sea, not for a moment hesitating to make sure of not getting things done. Laughing, cheering and spending. Stopping, shopping and canoodling. Cannibals can't carry on as crazily as we do. Sundays are when we smile.

Brooklyn (Holdin it down in the Holdy Land prt 3)

Brooklyn is a head on collision of Interpol and D.H. Lawerence shaken up with a splash of neckface and served in white castle wrapper.

There's a subtle overwhelmingness in the humidity of the panic.

The village on the other hand is the little mother of pearl reflection of that same distorted image re-constituted and re-imagined across the sweaty shores of the island. It’s mini skirts and cowboy boots, standing in front of pizza parlor fantasies, epicenter of the new world.

I am anything but sure as we finally exit the doldrums of the path train. A Straight bead from Philly to NYC, puffing away like an asthmatic on a joint slack jawed through Elizabeth, a painful gallstone of broken memories and disjointed promises.

Elizabeth - the Sabbath of my youth, the dirty pretty thing haunting my past and shaping my future identities. Dark times and the rain are not unwelcome.

Elizabeth, a name cursed like an ex girlfriend who shaped my life. Stinking slum of personality. Epic pies in catholic school followed by canolli and sun drenched cicadas.

NYC is burning - bright beacon of insanity in an otherwise ocean of debauchery and wanton derelicts. Scanning for Kerouac and only reaching Brouse.

This was the summer of dreams and long off forgotten delights. The fog of regret replaced by the sunshine of tomorrow.
Strolling the old country, longing for fernet, sedated by silly waves across the Delaware. Eating better, sleeping well - tipping like it was going out of style, representing the 415 and loving every minute of it. Derelict Dirigible of delicious deviousness, deciding delightfully do dons deserve double ad doubt did do-dads.
Breaking into verse, working what’s left of my magic, like Rochester knowing you won't like me.

It’s checking in at the hotel then shower and a walk as we scurry down 51st names only familiar from songs.

There's sapphire moitos in the blender as Arlo's little brother Gabe - Jellies the front door.
My little brother Kevin has deja vu about the place. I'm living big as I step inside.
Crazy stairs and a Santa Fe voice, lead me up into a flat of roaring stares. Opening up to heaven in the form of green Chile.
Lighting fast twist of fate - meeting the brother of my first, unofficial...roommate.
Blown away by everything eager as a mentat, observing a possible lifetime of what if's and maybe so's.
It's everything I wished it would be. Crazy Kids wearing far out clothes. Smoking smiles and listening to fresh. Being there, living there - shaping there. A kaleidoscope of importance and now. Reality TV's wet dream, a group of kids that were that pretty, that complicated -that didn't give a fuck. An archipelago of awesome in a sea of Courtney Arquette loving troglodytes.
In short a love letter to Diesel Jeans, Mary Jane and Apple Computers - girls, slim wasted Kate Mosses all apathetic indictments of east coast ingenuity.
Gabe, decked out head to toe in white, oozing borrowed sophistication in size 10 aldo flip flops.
Dumbfounded dumpster of devious desire, disorganized and designed a marquee of madness exploding in a bench clearing brawl.
Sitting out on fire escape, desiring my arrival. Developing dizziness as David b was discussed. Returned to Normality after many mint maladies.
Staying awake for hours – riding the train warriors style from Brooklyn to the city. Escaping the madness and living for the for the last, hearts ever beating, heart every beating
Heart ever beating.
heart ever beating.
heart ever beating.

Interview with David Bowie - San Francisco - 1986

Originally this article ran in the entertainment section of CNN.COM the following is the rough un-edited form untouched by editors in Atlanta - enjoy.

I don't know what to expect - I'm all a titter in antica-pation. My eyes are closed tightly and I'm floating on a wave of soul music and glam rock. I've been trying to cover Bowie for the last 20 years, of which - I've been alive only six of them. I'm sitting at the top of the Mark Hopkins, vodka and tonic running a steady stream from my forehead - fernet stealing my nerves, half ofbolivia cheering me on. What will he be like? Does David Bowie sit down or does he just float - hover in mid air and contemplate life in a funky, funky disco ball? It's one of those transcendental moments of my life - I'm humming the words to Sorrow as I jot anything down into my notepad. I'm not nervous - nervous was prom night with thegerman foreign exchange student - tonight I'm...I'm at a loss.
Sorrow.
To America and thus the world, David Bowie is that representation of the Abstract fabulous being in all of us - oozing sexuality and not caring who steps in it. Dirty and Debonair - if the strokes are what you imaginebrooklyn to be like on half a gram and a 40 then David Bowie is that party all the cool kids were hitting up on mars.
He shimmers into the bar, long black sex kitten Iman on his arm, draped like a velvet cloak, a shadow of a sharp faced beauty.
He's the Jean Genie, the thin white Duke - the soundtrack to all my important break ups .
Bowie is wearing some kind of Safari outfit - he's wrapped himself in beige khaki shorts, matching short sleeved buttoned up shirt with a red and white checkered sash slung like abandolier , close cropped red hair, cigarette dangling haphazardly - constantly pacing his mouth but never quite leaving it - pale white skin and thin pink lips. His throat sticks out at an obscene angle and he smells faintly of musk oil and chalk. He's wearing a monocle which makes his blue eye appear much larger then its accompanying brown eye. He moves with intent of purpose and seems to constantly be gauging and readjusting himself to his surroundings.Iman is dressed in a simply black smock, the word "caution" embedded
into the pattern. Her eyes and the majority of her face are covered in a thin red veil with the exception of a cohiba cigarette jutting out, almost in a phallic manner. She's wearing matching black moon boots where as Bowie has knee high socks and off whitenikes - the swoosh symbol scratched off and replaced by a smiling crescent moon and a spoon.

ME
David Bowie, the voice of a generation hiding from the men who sold the world - what's this new project you've been working on?

DB
Well, it's a Jim Henson Picture. A dreamy, sleepy vision of coo-coo's and cocoa puffs, a girl who shimmies through a story of sinister simplicity. The go, go, go of the gone, gone gones.

The last bit he hums out. Tapping his hands on the bar to some crazy beat in his head

Me
Wow - that sounds amazing. Sort of like the man who fell to earth, which coincidentally was filmed in my home state.

DB
Oh, man, yeah - this is puppets and signing - big budget, crazy cosmic jive.

Me
This is a Jim Henson film, does this mean we're to expect Kermit the Frog and Ziggy Stardust sharing screen time?

DB
That's far out - you heard about that to? There's a starman waiting in the sky, he'd like to come and meet us but he thinks he'd blow our minds.

Iman whispers something in Bowies ear and he laughs - bares his fangs as he giggles.

Me
Whats so funny David Bowie?

DB
Nothing, just, well you know that song of mine "Knock on Wood"? It's got this all encompassing big budget categorically eighties quality about it that can only be referred to as fake and completely studio and that's what I pick up on you.

ME
Wait, what?

DB
Well, think about my song "Soul Love" there's a line, "all I have is my lovers love - love is not loving you" it's an allusion to the spinningduldrums of the record playing cosmic groovies , what I'm saying man, you're a suit. The tie, the white collared suit. Forget the movie - I'm David Bowie - what do you want to ask me? Get off the script.

Me
What would you ask you?


David Bowie pauses, squares his eyes dead on mine, bites his bottom lip, taps his left foot against the right foot of Iman, swirls an imaginary circle in the air in front of him and stands up.

I am completely overwhelmed as a journalist. I don't really want to ask him anything. I just want to experience him, breathe him in like smoke and exhale. I'm thinking of the piano to "Oh you pretty things" and wishing that I wasn't wasting the moment. I'm acutely aware of the fact that I'm arranging words to manipulate emotions and yet I'm surgically detached - starring from far away at the "freakiest show"
Begging myself the question again and again, Is there life on mars?
I loosen my tie.

DB
What does it mean, mate? Its like the story of Triptomelus, the greek demi-god who comforted Persephone's mother after the onset of winter. He rode a chariot driven by dragons on his way to promote agriculture. A vengeful and inimical King slew one of his dragons and thus denied his kingdom of advanced farming techniques. Don't you see it?

Me
David Bowie, what do you mean?

DB
To follow meaning is like hunting a cosmic chimera. It's getting lost on the far out beauty of the obscene, its the honesty in all the gibberish that marks us as incisive.

He's using his monocle to as an emphasis to his points, a crowd gathering curiously around us, ready and willing to cast their fates with him for lack of something better, eyes quick to gaze upon this golden calf of a man.

Shyly aware of the attention he sits back down and motions the bartender over. He orders a Negroni for Iman, a bitters and soda for himself. He stares into the drink. Foot still tapping against Imans, trying to keep the madness at bay.

I've nothing more to say to him, nothing I can say that wouldn't sound both stupid and contrived. We part ways at the roof of the Mark Hopkins where Iman and him jump into a waiting chopper. As the wind from the rotor blades kicks at my clothes and whips my hair I realize that sometimes art is best appreciated for what it is and what it means to you then what it is and what it means to the artists - because sometimes they have conflicting points of view. I leave the interview no better then when I came into it - wishing for no profound epiphany, I find none - only rock and roll where before there was nothing.

August 29, 2007

Last night I met a lady from L.A., she worked for Atlantic Records in A&R. I was very impressed, she seemed young and smart and even though I don't know what A&R means, she has a business card so I'm sure it's important. She asked me what I do, besides bartending and I had to think about it. I thought of Bukowski and told her I was a writer - but it felt thin and empty. I told her I was a disenfranchised film school student that dropped out and took writing classes. That I was working on my first novel. I didn't lie to her because I wanted to sleep with her, I lied to her because I felt like creating some one else, someone good.
As I left work last night one of the members of the private club I bartend at gave me a cigar and I eagerly smoked it on the way home - like a good dog who's been tossed a bone.
Shit like this is swirling in my head like a tornado about to touch down on a trailer park. I've been writing my whole life but I'm not really a writer, I'm not really that talented and I'm not fishing for complements. Sometimes, things just bubble into my brain and I can't stop myself.
I've started to drink beer, I don't know who I am anymore.
The other day, a girl told me I was the square who was cool on his time off, also that I had a hot body under my uniform. I wanted to tell her that I loved dark chocolate but given the sensitive nature of my comment I didn't know if it was appropriate.
I toy with the idea of writing a novel about Santa Fe, about the people and places I knew when I lived there. Drug dealers and debauchery on a grand scale for such a small town. This always makes me laugh.
I find my life is a collection of "to be continued" titles that I'm working on. My friendships are laissez-faire affairs set to stun and my ego bigger then my...well it's not that big.
Slowly life is slipping by an adventure of who's who's whooshed by in a comedy of would've and almosts. Creating characters and forgetting to write them, living them and forgetting about before.
All, this sitting in a park in the city, watching teeny tiny asian girls walk big bad bull mastiffs.
Cop cars and ambulances scream by in a staccato cry of contentment and cautious buses bellow, smog free electric bumper cars headed down the hill and into oblivion.
Eating the last of my cookies, wondering - where, where the time's gone by?
A few seconds till I'm 27 sitting on the cusp of Pacific and Gough, lounging till I'm going...going...gone.

Holdin it down part 2

I was determined to fly into Philly on a one way cloud of bliss. I hadn't been back east since December of 2001 and at the time everyone seemed jumpy.I couldn't wait to see my Bubbala and my Philly family. It's weird but since we've never lived near the family they always seemed so far from me. Not only by distance, but just out of reach. I was looking forward to reconnecting with everyone. After my incident at the security check point I was ready for a shot and some sleep. At this point I had been up for almost 30 hours. I slid over to the surprisingly well stocked Oakland airport bar and tried not to make eye contact with the missionaries that were getting puppy dog close.
I wanted to find a nice chair - a couch or a tempurpedic bed and take a nap before the flight. I left the security of the mahogony bar and headed out toward the cruel anonymity of the southwest arrival and departures board, the names of foreign cities flashing like cherries in a slot machines under my squinty, stumbley type gaze. I used my luggage as a crutch and zoned out under the cold hard stares of the flourescent lights of Gate E5. A sleeping stranger that no one noticed or cared about. For awhile, I watched the people go by, funny looking europeans with bad tans, hazzled mothers with a family of four, a huge lady in a purple track suit that looked like she would be more at home on a grape vine then in an airport.
When I found out that my flight was delayed for two hours I sadly submitted - all I could do was apologetically walk my way back to the bar, carry on luggage being dragged ruefully behind, my face...a sea of agony.
I was stranded. Alone, inebriated - odds that I found fondly in my favor.
Even though I was by myself all my friends were surrounding me, Jack, Jim, Stoli - the memories poured out in sweat to the pace of an overactive liver.
I slumped up in my bar chair and asked to speak to the Devil. The barman reached for the Fernet and I know the fear, this flight will not come fast enough.
It was a nonstop - which means I closed my eyes in Oakland and opened them again with my head resting on my seat neighbors shoulder somewhere outside of Chicago.
When I landed in Philly my brother Kevin was waiting for me with my cousins Mike and Amir. I hadn't seen them in way to long. Sure, we still kept in touch through myspace and lately facebook - but still, it's not really seeing the person.
It was so weird to be back in the Philadelphia. It was cool to see my cousins - they were beginning to be men of their own right. They were like younger brothers, I'd seen them grow up and wondered where the time went.
It was overcast and damp that day, most like San Fran and I was worried because I really wanted to feel an east coast summer. It's not the same as anywhere else that I've been. Its this hot, old timey wet lumpy sock of a summer ...cicada's chirping like wind chimes in the bushes. Long breezes to cut a path through the thick swaths of summer wool. It's Italian ice and driving down the AC Expressway, the warm coconut smell of sun tan lotion, hoagies and boardwalk fries and going down the shore. It's my youth and my dreams.
It's boogey boarding and getting sand in your mouth. Worrying about sharks and sandbars. Long walks along the shore eating pizza, washing away the grease in the warm Atlantic ocean.
We kicked around Philly for a few days staying on the generosity of my Uncle and Aunt. They live just outside of the city in Bucks County. Its the suburbs, the stip club is topless only and grey goose costs 3 dollars and you can smoke in bars.
At the Nishaminy mall, Kevin and I drank about $80 of vodka and mind erasers in a half hour. The staff felt bad about the tab, they bough a round for us because of it. I tipped a twenty and they lost thier shit.
The brothers from the west - we were instantly famous.
I told the bartender about my fancy city drinks. They knew about mojitos and the cosmos - but he didn't know the Liquid Cocaine, the sperm shot or the flaming dr. pepper. We taught him the pain of Fernet and the joy of ginger-ale.
Soon other people around the bar were getting wind of what we were up too - doing shot after shot of rotgut out drinking their bartender.
It was some weird battle.
He'd name a shot, if I knew it he'd have to drink it. If I didn't then I had to drink it. This went back and forth, mind eraser to the kamikaze, b-52's to black jacks to boleros to mi amors, layered stoplight shots, psychedlic grateful deads and finally depth charges from the bow of a feeeeeelthy mexican submarines. By the time we started to leave the bartender was black out drunk and Kevin had gotten his girlfriends number.
We played laser tag, and kicked some serious ass. We practiced 360 degrees of security. I shot a guy in the eye. I held the laser on him till I got a warning.
We tried to make it to six flags on bright summery day and ended up headed down the shore, never made the beach because the car broke down. Sat in sweat and waited as the cars cruised by on the side of the road for 5 hours before a tow truck came. With it my Aunt and my Bubbula in a spare car. When the original car was towed their car broke down. Waited another 3 hours with them till we could get a jump. Loved every minute of the forced quality time.
Again promised not to sign anything in Israel.
We sang songs and told stories, it was back rubs and risque jokes. Catching up and being brought back into the loop - the conection getting strong, not feeling so far off.
We were ready for New York.

Jun 13 2007

The day I left San Francisco to Israel I hadn't slept. It's not for lack of trying - just that if I was going to have to wake up early to catch a flight then it would be easier to not sleep and have my devilish grin up and running at the word go. I ripped a bunch of tracks from Limewire, the strokes, interpol, french kicks, the walkmen, clipse - anything I could to get prepared. Be ready for a flight into obliivion. I was taking no chances, my passport was tapped to my waist - I would have sewed it to my arm if I would've had some string. I had my ID and Credit card ready to go at a moments notice. The only thing I didn't have was a working knowledge of Hebrew- or any knowledge for that matter. Was I too be condemned to the classless ranks of other dumb americans before me?
A slave of my hubris?
Yakked out I was afraid the trip I was about to take was a dream I would wake up from before I took off. Like crystal pepsi and summer time it would be gone before I could ever get the taste of it. A trip like this was unheard off, I'm the middle son of a middle class family, in the middle of a egocentric examination of all things debauchery. I didn't know what I expected to find, faith? God? Country? Fellowship? Other people who didn't eat bacon?
I caught a cab at 7 in the morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed. With my bags in the trunk and charm in my smile and a full wallet I headed toward the Bart stations at Powell street and adventure.
I got off Bart at the Oakland Coliseum and caught the airBart bus to the Oakland Airport. Coming from the sunshine of San Francisco to Oakland is like traveling through Conrads Heart of Darkness. Every station a little more dangerous, more shifty people, more bad intent.
I got off at the Airport and grabbed my stuff. There were two Christian tourists on the airBart bus with me, confused by the Airport I helped them to there terminal and waited with them in the security line. They were spreading message of Christ to San Francisco - I covered my mouth with my hand and hoped none of it would get on me.
Since I decided to bring my only piece of luggage as carry on security decided to tear it up. They threw out my shampoo, my soap, my toothpaste, my deodorant and my dignity. All I had left was some wrinkled clothes, and a shocker flashlight. A shocker flashlight?
It's a tricked out flash light that gives you a jolt when you try to turn it on. They loved it at airport security. The guy who went through my gear gave it to all his cronies - they giggled like little girls at a tea party. After he gave it back to me and helped me pack it into my carry on I asked if I could have my other unopened sundries back, as I thought in my mind that I had proved I wasn't a terrorist. He gave me a shocked look and said no.
Asshole.

My first interview with Christian Slater

____________________________

My first Interview with Christian Slater

This is my first interview with Christian Slater and I’m nervous.
I’m terrified.
Christian, he’s waiting for me in the other room, I’m here in the bathroom, my photographer hasn’t shown up yet. To be quite frank this is my first interview ever.
I hope he doesn’t realize that.
I don’t take pictures. I know this is a stupid thing to think of now, but I don’t.
Not a click. Never learned. Which is weird because my father is a picture frame maker.
Christian Slater clears his throat, like he’s impatient and I want to go. I have to go, leave get out and runaway. I am not qualified to do this. I lied on my interview.
I made it up.
I never wrote for my high school newspaper. I didn’t even like heathers.
.
He is sitting and he has dark hair that hangs around his pale face. It’s older now, the face more so then I remember from movies. He has wrinkles that line the edge of his mouth and a line of his forehead. Christian Slater stares at me, his eyes dead locked on mine.
Scratch that.
I loved heathers

Me:
Christian how have you been?
CS
Well I’m a little upset
Me
Why are you upset
CS
You’ve kept me here almost an hour

We stare at each other a moment. He reminds me of dreams, the kind where you wake up and think you’ll remember but just fall back asleep and realize in the morning you forgot something life changing. Earth shattering.
There is the smell of Downey drier sheets, Aqua-Velva aftershave. He is summer and that glorious time in the mall with my friends when we all tried to pretend we were so cool and not just dumb teenagers.
He crosses his legs and re-crosses them. I realize as we sit here in this dead air silence sort of thing he must be getting the feeling that I ask deep profound questions.
I realize this is true as well.


Me
Tell me about where you believe the future in Mexican textiles is heading and how that reflects on both Nafta and our current administration as a whole.


CS
Well,
Wait…what?
Me
Chris, may I call you Chris? I feel that your work has had a considerable role in changing people’s lives for the better in very pivotal but at the same kind subconscious ways.
Your opinion?

CS
Well, first I guess I’d like to start out by saying that-
Me
Did you know my ex-girlfriend used to fantasize about you when she was a teenager?
CS
No, I didn’t know that
Me
Yeah, she had a picture of you in a box, and would think about you by herself in the woods
CS
Uh well
Me
What do you say about that
CS
About what
Me
About underage teen age girls manipulating their genitalia in response to your image, in the woods?
CS
Well, I’d say that-
Me
Ha! So you admit it.
CS
Admit what?
Me
Do you have plans to sleep with my ex-girlfriend?
CS
No
Me
Liar!
CS
I don’t even know you-

There is a vibe here, a nervous energy much akin to that awkward pre-teen dating. Of my own sweaty and inexperienced first time in the woods.
Playing dirty truth or dare.
Nervous smiles, clammy hands and under inflated breasts - soft curly pubic hair.
I don’t remember the sounds. I remember the smell. It’s the humid warmth of a Jersey summer, and humidity and perspiration on the tip of the lip, looking at smuggled porn all day psyching ourselves out to do it.
I realize as I relive this Christian Slater is starring at me, looking at me.
Why is he here?
Did he follow me?
Is this my place?
Is he stalking me?
Or am I stalking him?


Me
Switching subjects tell me about your work with Patricia Arquette
CS
Huh?

I realize as we converse that he is obviously on drugs. The stark raving iris of a mad man gives it away. I must stare him down. I can’t let his gaze dominate mine.
I will beat him.

CS
Why are you staring?

Me
I’m casting my eyes deep into the heart of teen cool

CS
Well, when you put it like that

Me
A soul so immaculate, so pure and praiseworthy I must draw you.

CS
What?

Me
Here, You saw titanic.

I sense distrust. Fear. This is the first interview I’ve ever done with Christian Slater and he seems to be nervous around me. Like a lion I must not break his gaze. To retreat now would be sheer madness, suicide. But, if it’s a fight he wants – I will bring it to him.

CS
What magazine do you write for again?

Me
They have a Spanish word for you, it means both beast and crazy –
Pollo Loco

Christian mouths the words and they roll of his tongue in a linguistic waterfall.

CS
What does this mean, this Pollo Loco?

Me
I’m a journalist, not a translator. Keep it together man.

I offer him a cigarette and in the style of all famous authors and journalists we make love.
Afterwards, when we are finished, I hand him a towel and he wipes himself up.

CS
There was this time once; I was on set for this thing with Jack Nicholson and Mimi Van Doren.We had just finished filming a three-some, which for whatever reason didn’t air. Mimi retreats back to her trailer, tired likes, and Jackie and I are just hanging out reverberating in the afterglow. Happy likes, you know?
Chan, that’s our casting director walks in with two bags of thai opium and three teenage prostitues. Now at first I was a little skeeved out, and arguable so, they if anything, were only 14.
And, ugly…
We each dig in, start on the opium and pretty soon were burning through it like freedom fliers on red square. Well, pretty soon were knee deep in Thai hooker and I look over at Jacko and I say, Hey yours got a penis!
They are in some weird reverse lotus position and I can see both faces. The Thai kid, he is young and wild eyed – Jacko of course is puffing his hash and laughing manically.
He replies back to me behind loud guffaws – yours does to.
To my astonishment he did.

This is it, I realize…my moment to strike. His defenses are down. He does not expect me to attack him now. Look at him, calm, relaxed. He has no idea of the danger that awaits the trap that is about to spring.
I smile.

CS
Yeah, you could say they were good times.
Funny follow up.
Jacko gets the clap from this kid and later I find that Chan, got aids that same time around.
Now I’ve never gotten tested, but I figure when I give blood that they would let me know if something was up.
Well, with his culture being different and all he ended up being crucified on the Great wall, head removed and sent to the museum down in Shanghai.
Strange thing, cultures.
That reminds me, once in Jakarta we were taken to a bath house. It was after an all nighter ripped to shreds on triple latte’s, speedballs and a copious amount of amphetamines. Now, I’m not one for drugs. Never have been, never will. But, it was that bastard Chan again. Gets my weakness every time, domino affect and piles them one after another with the music, drinks, sex and then ultimately drugs. The odd thing was after we would screw he would always get that energy, casting fever he would call it and find out something more for us to do.
Something that would push us to some new extreme.
Something that we hadn’t tried yet, or wouldn’t live to try through.
It was a kind of suicide those days – a living with death in it’s freakish occurrences daily type thing. My publicist obviously hated Chan; hated him with a passion. She realized, and correctly so, that if I died in some kinky way that her career was over.
Kaput!
Who wants to manage the guy that had sex with the girl in Hanson?
Come to think about it, she’s the one who probably told the embassy about Chan and his T Cell count.

I strike suddenly, my hand flat out and straight into his throat.
My fingers make contact with the soft throaty flesh and I hear a crack.
He falls back gurgling up spit, kicks his feet for a few moments and lies still.
I stand over him, put my pants back on and straighten my shirt.

We are through here.
I walk over his body and out the door.
This is my first interview with Christian Slater.
I think it went well.

०२ फेब ०६

Emperor Norton I

I went home again.

The city. The bay. The people. This is home and I don't want to change it. I dream more there, I think more there - I might even dance better there. Then again, maybe not.

I'm getting old or else I'm just getting bored. Either way life always ends up like a david bowie song - pretty but with no real meaning. I've been trying to write a lot more lately but yet I find I've got nothing to write about.

I mean, technically I should be able to write volumes. Shit, we could start with Eric. Did you know he has a black pair of short shorts that he wears to the gym that have the words "Man Eater" written along the ass in hot pink? Seriously, I should be able to do something with that - but...what's the bother.

San Francisco though...what do you hold in store for me? My wallet gets a workout and my legs get tired and yet I'm smitten by you. If you could only cheat on me once or twice you'd remind me of an ex-girlfriend. Ooh....that was cheap.

Top 5 breakups of all time ( courtesy of Hi Fidelity)

1. Gould.

I don't really want to get into this story, lets just say it's hard to know that some times I was the bad guy, it's even harder to know that and keep it up. Thats how I roll, I keeps it gangsta.

2. Alena Palivoda

She was my first kiss. Polish and little mosquito bite boobies. This is in third grade and she always wanted to see my p-e-n-i-s. Little did I know that this would be a good indicator of things to come. For some reason my parents got it into my head that if a girl wanted to have sex with me then she definatley had to have AIDs.Therefore she became the first person I ever knew who had AIDs. In retrospect its really fucked up, but also I laughed when I wrote AIDs. It makes me thing of that song from Team America: World Police. We broke up after I accidentally broke her nose while playing T-Ball. I failed to mention that she is also my first girlfriend.

3) Jerri Something

She had a tattoo that drove me wild. I was 19 and at 17 she was already way cooler then me. This also would be a good indicator of things to come. It was a weird x crush and I don't think that I'd ever experienced that before. We used to do ether because I thought Hunter S. Thompson was cool...he still is. We broke up when a friend of mine who was a stripper let me in on the fact that she was sleeping around with like 4 other dudes and a traveling circus. Nice. It wasn't the fact that she went behind my back, it was that everyone knew but no one said a thing. Also, I think she stole my neighbors cat.

4) Rachel Knudsen.

We didn't really break up as much as disovle. She was my rebound in highschool. She started off as a best friend and finished off in a moan. We went to NY together and hated every second we spent...but god we were good in bed. Went to the poconos and relived my childhood in a Salvador Dali sort of way. Transitional like a junior prom.

5) Amber Kennedy

This is the first girl I ever loved. We worked together at the New Mexican writing for the teen page. God what a body (whistling sound ensues) She used to follow me home from school without me knowing. Now that would be known as stalking - but back when I was in highschool it was still hot. Sort of is now too. She promised me the world and faked tears on the phone when she broke my heart. I was sick for three days. In a good indicator of things to come I hooked up with her best friend. I never saw her again.

Dark thoughts from distant days, like Joy Division I'm being over dramatic.
Why did the blonde go to church?

Because she heard there was a man hung like this ( stretches arms out...christlike)

21 Feb 2006

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Real Politik

The 1st Amendment has been on my mind a lot lately, especially after those Danish cartoons of Mohamed appeared to cause riots world wide. I was proud of the European countries who stood up with the Danes and disappointed with those who didn't. The American response confused me because I can understand the thought process of the heads of the papers but not really stomach the actions. No major paper ran the cartoons; this was done in order not to offend any Muslims and inflame the situation.
While this may seem like a good decision as it respects the value of human life - it appears to me to instead strike a major blow to the 1st Amendment and bow into the pressures of a increasingly unstable religious group.

We take our freedoms for granted, but what will the cost be to defend them?

I am not a Muslim. I am not a follower of Allah nor have I read the Koran. I do not adhere to the tenets of whabism and furthermore I never intend to.

Why then do the commandments of one religion have to adhere to me? If that applies to me then it applies to the world.

The cartoons drew heat because one of them depicted a picture of Mohamed with a bomb in his turban. According to the Muslim faith, replication of the likeness of Mohamed is strictly forbidden.

Muslims were then incensed by the stereotypical portrayal of their prophet. Then, in true stereotypical fashion - they rioted. Almost right on cue.

They burned flags, they kidnapped people, stormed embassies and basically proved every stereotype true.

So whats the problem with the cartoon? In the US and abroad editorials abounded about how insensitive those cartoons were, how offensive they were to Muslims all over the world. Yet, no one mentioned how the Danes were "offended" by the destruction of their embassies or how "insensitive" it was for rioters to destroy Danish business.

In response to this violence the editors of the major European papers that printed them were fired, including the editors of the paper in Denmark. In fact, two Saudi newspaper editors who ran the cartoons were jailed and given death sentences by their government.

So then, this raises the question - what next?

Will our women have to wear veils in public?

This isn't a far fetched question. If we can fail so miserably on this first international battle of principles then what follows can only be bigger and more incredulous.

What happens next?

---------------The Cartoons In Question--------------

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/Loganbrouse/Mohammed-drawings-newspaper1.jpg

02 May 2006

I am a man, dammit.

I like boobies and I like vodka.

I swear and I like to shoot guns.

I leave the toilet seat up.

I never fold my gym clothes.

That doesn't mean I don't have a sensitive side.

Take the lyrics of Don't Stop Believing by super group Journey. What does it mean?

At first we are introduced to the seemingly mundane life of a small town girl - she's livin' in a lonely world.

What does this mean to us. Steve Perry (P.B.U.H.) lays it out for us, not with words but with rock! She's taking a midnight train - and baby, it's goin' anywhere. This is where we are introduced to the genius of Journey. You see, he's a city boy but Journey sets us right with the knowledge that his life...its just as bad. He's taking that train too.

Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit
He took the midnight train goin' anywhere

This next verse is a personal favorite because we see how the cynical realities of the world they inhabit struggle to destroy the souls of the youth that exist within. The smokey room is merely a metaphor for the coquettish arrogance of youth and Journey is trying to tell us that like Romeo and Juliet these kids, with their youth and their spirit - they can beat it. They're not jaded by the cruel hypocrisies and banalities of this travesty called life. No - they believe in love, they want to give it a shot and for a smile they can share the night. This verse ends with hope - it gives a message of faith and ultimately...redemption. Only if it would go on and on and on and on...

A singer in a smokey room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on

The following part of the song is indicative to the story of Job. What the people lament is what makes the people who they are. Journey is telling you to take your star bucks liberalism and your harry potter ideals of justice and shove them far up your ass. These strangers that they speak of, these shadows searching in the night, well they are just as real as you and me. Its like Journey challenged us to look deep in to the abyss of our souls, to try and shine a spotlight into the truth of what makes us who we are - and then played four minutes and nine seconds of rock over the muffled cries of our inner child. Fuck Yeah!

Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night

This last part of the song I usually skip because I'm still too busy rocking to the first parts. For the sake of argument - I will say that its really a reflection of who we are as a people and the merits of the choices that we make. I feel that Steve Perry (P.B.U.H.) really lays out our options and tells us that the choices we have to make aren't always the choicest of choices. What Journey means by this is that sometimes, our options are always the best option to option. We're all payin anything to roll the dice, just one more time. Sing that without crying.

I dare you.

Working hard to get my fill,
everybody wants a thrill
Payin' anything to roll the dice,
just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

Of course the chorus is a mere repetition of the basic themes of the song - one of youth and young manhood. One of beauty and loss, of the duality of man. Of the burdens of duty and desire. This is the music that the heart beats to, it what gets you up in the morning and puts a smile on your face when you sleep. This is the stuff that makes you straighten your posture and become a better man. It's like Chuck Norris sang falsetto then learned how to play a synthesizer and formed a super group with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mr. T.

It is a homage to all things awesome and a sacrificial offering to Elvis at the temple of Rock!

(chorus)

Don't stop believin'
Hold on to the feelin'
Streetlight people

08 Jun 2006

If only the stems work...

Playing trivial pursuit drinking tequila listening to the kinks and this sideways seventies smile comes out of me. The beer must be flat but it's summer time, and I've still got my youth....

10 Oct 2006

syllables then 7 then 5

Walking through the city today I thought of some hiaku that reflected the atmosphere. Here they are in their un-edited form:

1)

black kids run so fast
the city's a drum machine
silence, decieving

2) A pensive bull dyke
crouches on her lovers face
pretends we aren't there

3) Grey not yellow
asian toddlers look like aliens
the truth is out there

13 Oct 2006

Paying for it

sitting in the internet cafe
buck fifty buys ten minutes
Weird

17 Oct 2006

Not even a month and we've already been fired...

On Saturday the 14th Eric was officially fired from his first job. How you ask? Why you ask? Well - it wasn't my fault.
Seriously.

We were supposed to be catering this wedding at the Presidio. We were supposed to get there at about 4pm. Due to the fact that Eric can't hail a cab worth shit - he got there around 5. Due to the fact that I didn't care I got there around six. So far, good start - right

So we're working this wedding - hanging out, getting the bartenders to hook us up with shots and drinks - basically having a pretty decent time. Now, since we are in San Francisco the caterer is gay. Which makes his boyfriend gay. So we meet Lee (the boyfriend) and he seems pretty cool. A little too cool if you catch my drift?
So this Lee guy and actually all the people there are pretty cool and they are giving us there cards and telling us how they'll set us up for other gigs because of the good job we were doing.
Now, I've got to tell the truth here - Eric was doing a good job, he really was working hard - bussing and running shit...blah,blah,blah.

On the other hand, I had been walking around for about an hour with the same glasses just going back and forth between the busser station, the reception area and my little hiding place. I was smart though and the boss man, Aaron thought I was really working hard. A plus for me!

We start wrapping up the night and Lee the boyfriend starts trying to get us drunk. I warn him that I'm from Santa Fe, that I am a proffesional drinker and that it wouldn't be as much for him as it would be for Eric and I. He refuses to let my good advice sway him and proceeds to try to outdrink me with tequila. Well about 5 shots later hes slurring his words, leaning on shit and hanging on Eric. Eric, a non-tequila drinker is also sloshed.
I keep drinking a little bit keeping the 505 torch held high.
Let me re-itereate here, that even though we were both late everyone really liked us. We won them over. We were going to be friends.

Seeing that all our work is done Aaron the boss pays me in cash. Then he asks me where Eric is to which I tell the truth - I don't know. We go looking for Eric and in the process find him in the boys bathroom (this was a highschool that the wedding was thrown in) pants down around his ankles engaged in a very, very awkard position with our friend Lee. Well Aaron runs out crying, Lee does whatever Lee does and Eric sneaks out of the building and hides.

This is the last thing I remember...

Cut to 5 hours later and its about 4 am and I'm lying face down at the bottom of a hill in a thicket. Eric and my new jeans are nowhere to be seen. For some reason I have my phone, have my wallet and have my money. Just no jeans. Why? Why?

I walk the 5 miles back to my house cursing Erics name for leaving me. I left him a message threatening to kill him. I try to hail a cab - but no one would pick up a guy without pants covered in leaves.

The next moring Eric tells me that as we started to walk home I nose dived off the side of a hill and there I lay - unwilling or unable to move. So he hoped a cap and left me.

We have reached the status of rockstars. There is no turning back.

24 Oct 2006

He who dares wins in the city...

So, its important to note that in general - I'm not that bad of a guy. Por Hemplo, I usually try to give money to the homeless and compliment the ugly. I always tip both servers and strippers and I usually try to do that tap on the head thing before I...ahem. Well, despite all these great character traits I'm still finding myself on the banned list of certain hotels.
Here's the thing - third night in San Francisco and we spend it drinking and eating at this place called Cha Cha Cha on Haight street. I'm there with my friends Tony and Mely two fellow Santa Fe transplants as well as King George and Eric. We get bombed and start speaking supermarket Italian. You know, Preggo, Mozzeralla..Provolone, conversing gallantly in the romance language. Well as things go we left the restaurant and hit some clubs and had a great evening.

Pretty normal - but don't worry...it gets better.

Around two in the morning we get back to the hotel and find ourselves with a mighty thirst. At first Tony, Eric and I try to hit one of the liquor stores (I didn't know they stopped selling at 2) but it's of no use. One funny thing is that I learned that Eric makes like a gay rabbit and flees at the first sign of danger (in this case a wheel chair bound Rasta who was rolling behind us shouting shit). We get back to the hotel disappointed and decided to order a pizza. At three in the morning both are very essential. Unfortunately for us, Mr. Pizza Man the 24hr pizza delivery service wouldn't deliver to our hotel.

In that moment of glorious defiance I ripped up the phone book in protest of the pizza company that spited us. I threw the shredded pieces of paper out the window and down they fell 6 stories to 4th street - like some urban duck hunt gone awry. This was followed in rapid succession by a water glass, an iron, a tv remote control, a Gideons bible, one air jordan, 4 eggs, coffee mix, a coffee pot, Georges and then my urine, Eric's Argyle sweater and finally our innocence which fell faster then michael jacksons pants at a boyscout jamboree. Everything hit the ground with either a satisfying thud or an electrifying crash!
Then as if a sign from heaven, or at least from the hotels management( at this point in my life one might be a metaphor for the other) the phone in our room began to ring.I failed to mention that Eric had passed out. This is important later.

My general rule of thumb is that if your hotel phone rings after 2 in the morning its always best to grab your shit and flee. Which is what we did. Except for Eric who was assed out.

I make it halfway down the hall and almost to the elevator when my conscious kicks in. I couldn't leave Eric, he was co-signer of my lease, my personal Internet cafe (I am using his laptop to write this) a source of most of my jokes, my hetero life partner and most important my friend. So with no regard for danger to either life or limb I went back for him. I ran in the room and shook him till he woke up - sleepy, drunk and confused. I told him grab your shit and go. It took him a minute to comprehend the scope of what I was yelling at him.

Just a quick aside, King George has learned this from numerous strip club encounters - when I say we have to go...I mean it, we have to go now.

We grab as much shit as we can from the room and head toward the elevator. Its at this moment when the story goes from mundane to insane.

Like cowboys we're cut off at the pass by savages - in this case the night bellman. He yells in full authority - were you the ones in 617? Of course, being the slick tongued smooth operating devil that I am - I yell no. I must have telegraphed my intentions with my eyes because he grabs for my arm. I pull a terell owens do a juke and sprint down the stairs, yelling at Eric -run motherfucker! I get down to the lobby and the little bastard bellman has beat me there, must have taken the elevator. He's at the door. He's blocking it with his body. Telling me the cops are on the way. Telling me I'm going to jail. I tell him I don't want trouble, pretend like I'm heading to the front desk and then when his guards down - I tackle him. We both go flying threw the front door of the hotel in an orgy of destruction and youthful ambition.

I will not go silently into that good night.

I get up - the bellman's down, I take off running down the street. I pass Tony, yell at him to run, he hands me his car keys and I fly four blocks down the street and hide in his car.

George, Mely and Tony join me shortly - but where's Eric?

From the car I see about 5 cruisers blazing down the street towards the hotel. I picture little Eric being taken downtown, being interrogated - bright light shinning in his face. Grizzled police asking him - where were you the night of October 5? The Judge throwing the book at him - prison showers...then I realize he might like it and suddenly I don't feel that bad. We creep down by the hotel, Erics in cuffs sitting on the curb. We pull into a little side street and wait. Delighted to be alive and scared for my friend. Then my phone rings and its Eric and they let him out. He's down the street hiding from homeless. He says the cops are looking for us. He tells us that he acted his balls off with the cops - told them that he didn't know us, was just invited to party in our room. Since his name wasn't on any of the hotel registers they let him go.

I ask him what happened in the hotel - how did the bastards get you?

He tells us that he was right behind me - he saw the tackle and as he was about to make his move the other guy behind the front desk locked the door by remote. He hit the door anyway and thats when he got tackled by a now very angry bellman. The front desk dude threw the bellman a club and threatened to brain eric with it if he got up. Thats how he stayed till the cops arrived.

Its King Georges last night in town and we pick up Eric and race to get George to the Airport - laughing the hole time.

Who says youth is wasted on the young?

15 Nov 2006

I always said I was a juicy piece of man candy... Dicitionary.Com defines discomfort as 1. an absence of comfort or ease; uneasiness, hardship, or mild pain. 2. anything that is disturbing to or interferes with comfort. I define discomfort as 43 hives appearing around my neck on Sunday, 27 individual hives appearing on my right arm on monday followed by another 12 on my left arm and numerous blisters and red spots suddenly appearing all over my back and legs shortly there after. I state here for the record that I am not a fan of tradional western medicine - not that I'm an incense loving hoaxa tea drinking, yoga worshiping neophyte hippie far from it (except for the hoaxa tea thing) just that I don't really want pills and steroids and antibiotics raging unchecked through my liqour infused body. That changes at 3 in the morning when I am in extreme discomfort. That changes when hives appear on my eyelids, on my ears, my toes and my hand swells so that I can't close it. After that point shoot me the fuck up with whatever you have handy. Steriods, pile em on, wanna test a new radiation therapy - please It'd be my pleasure - pump me full of artificial pick me ups like a lab rat and watch me explode across the sky like a billion bottle rockets on the 4th of july. I checked myself into the ER. Nicole and Eric went with me, Nicole also seemed to be having the same problem but not as bad. For her it was confined to her legs and cheeks whereas I looked like I coated myself in red chile and then jump kicked a wasps nest. This was my first time visit as a patient in a hospital. I was also slightly buzzed and more then a little nervous. I went to a room and they took my temperature and blood pressure and then put me in a gown. Nicole and Eric where in the next little partioned off corner of the room. I opened the curtains to hear them laughing at my lack of modesty - quickly I crossed my legs. In my mind I was trying to figure out how I could achieve the following: A) How to get rid of the rash that was covering my body B) How to not pay for the visit C) How to get a prescription for either valium or medical marijuanna With luck and charm I achieved 2 out of 3 The Doc deteremined that I was suffering from an acute allergic reaction to bug bites suffered from one of the shady hotels I'd been staying in. I determined my name was Eric Fura and signed his name to all the forms (any reference to people either living or dead is purely coincidental) The doc gave me benadryll, steriods (not the pump you up kind - I asked) antibiotics and something for the inflamation. In a bold effort to achieve my third goal of narcotics I told the doctor I had extreme anxiety - told him I was scared of scratching myself to ribbons in my sleep - scared I would wake up without a face and if there was anything he could do... He paused for a second, I took the oppurtunity to reach into my pocket - slip him a twenty to see if it would help, instead I pulled out a $1 bill and a devilish smile. You can't win em all. I went back to my hotel with Eric and Nicole and took all my meds. They told me I couldn't drink because of my antiobiotics. This lasted for a day. My hives are faded, my skin is a solid mocha brown and my blood is pulsing with chemicals. Kind of like I never left Santa Fe.

24 Nov 2006

24 Nov 2006

Leftovers are for folks with a fridge... Whisky and Benadryll Thanksgiving might have been different this year in that we celebrated in an Irish pub, that we didn't have second helpings or leftovers today and turkey sandwiches tomorrow but at the same time it was the same. To me, this holiday has always been about spending time with family, sharing stories and memories. Listening, talking, laughing and eating. Usually on Thanksgivings when I've been in Santa Fe I'll wake up with a hangover and head to my parents house around 1pm. My mom will have been cooking all day and the house will smell of turkey and love. Everyone will be excited, starving and we'll pop open a few bottles of champagne - gossip as my parents run around the house with various foodstuffs. Kevin and I will help stir gravy or chop potatoes and then the turkey will come out of the oven and all of us will ooh and awe over in all of its basted glory. Then we'll go set up the table, not the normal one but the holiday table that's only used for special occasions. More champagne and then a few shots of good tequila and all of us have a buzz. There's rice pilaf on the table, canned cranberry (my guilty pleasure) my moms homemade cranberry sauce, lots of stuffing, the gravy boat and the bird. Dad carves the breast and the dog gets the neck. Then its glasses clinking, forks and knives scraping on plates, satisfied moans and lips smacking and gravy spilling on the tablecloth. We lean back stuffed and relaxed, plates are cleared coffee is poured and my proud mother brings out homemade pumpkin pie and homemade whipped cream. After the mandatory nap we'll do it again and again the next day. If my brother or I have orphan friends in town then they'll celebrate with us. Yesterday San Francisco helped me realize that while I wasn't at my parents table I was still with my family. I was with Eric and Nicole two people crazy enough to follow me on this adventure - as I sit here in this Internet cafe in North Beach writing I come to the conclusion that this is what I'm thankful for. Our day wasn't perfect but it was spent together. That's what the meaning of this holiday is. This is why it's one of my favorite holidays. Even as a Jew I can see that the true meaning of Christmas has been bastardized by dollar signs but thanksgiving still remains true to its intentions. You don't need to buy or give anything - you just need to be there. I might not have enjoyed my food last night but I sure as hell enjoyed my company. I can't complain about drinking pint after pint ofGuinness and Jameson on the rocks but I can't say I'm used to it - still it felt right. O'reillys Pub isn't the Brouse house and San Francisco isn't Santa Fe but when the turkey arrived on my plate and that smell reached my nose I closed my eyes and imaged it could be. The noises were all the same, the smells the feelings all of it. A million miles away and still I felt at home. We took a walk afterwards and I bought chocolate covered pretzels and garbage pail kids stickers and the fudge shop and JW Red from the liquor store next to the hotel. Up on our floor there was an orphan party for people who had no family, no where to go. The room next to Eric was spilling out in the hallway with hippies and crack heads and weirdos from Alabama and yet they were doing the same as us. Holding on to that American tradition of food and family. Even though they didn't have much they invited us to join them to share their wine and listen to their stories and we did at least partially. Last night as I took my benadryll and washed it down with the last of the scotch and slept in a strange bed I smiled because I'm not alone and I am loved - even if its in the mist of madness.

26 Dec 2006

26 Dec 2006

christmas My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends .. It gives a lovely light! Edna St. Vincent Millay Its funny but the longer I'm out here the more I think of home and when I was home all I thought about was getting out here. Not that I want to leave - its just different. Christmas eve was celebrated with my family in the East bay. In Santa Fe it would have been spent wandering down canyon sining christmas carolls, kicking farolitos and sipping whiskey from Georges flask. My family. Snow is traded for fog and though the whiskey still comes out of a flask it only serves as a reminder and not a source of warmth. We are the wandering souls looking for warmth in adventure and imortality at the end of a bottle or a pressed pill, a generation of chemically imbalanced digitially edited personas who stumble, stager and leap through our twenties and onward to oblivion. Like bottle rockets we shoot through the night straight and true till we explode in a brilliant cacophany of sound leaving only smoke and memories as we fade away. Thats the only way I want to live - screaming through the night. Exciting and remembered. I want to kiss off the mundane and bury the day to day. Freedom is the last power we all have in common. Its not that I want to burn out - its that I want to live. I want stories and scars - I want to get my kicks from the world around me and not burn out but blow up. Trip the trivial and flirt with the incredible. The idealism of my teens has washed away leaving wrinkled pessism and broken promises. That doesn't mean I need to stop believing. It doesn't mean I can't try. It doesn't mean I won't succeed. In what - well I guess that will take a year to find out.

New Years 2007

31 Dec 2006

new year's eve day The tap, Close my eyes and flow. Allegory. The velvet rimmed memories of new years signal something scary. There's a wolf in the woods, picking off the sheep one by one by one. The villagers are in an uproar; limp wrested homosexuals are prancing around in argyle sweaters, designer jeans, teacup poodles and impossibly straight posture. Little Chinese people slanging chicken feet and weird black skinned birds. Naked without feathers, observed from behind knock off sunglasses. Cracked out bums with milk in their beards, crazy people yelling sensible things, Woman in pant suits, Filipino barbers, compelling trannies, coffee shops, x rated cigar bars, plastic bags floating in the marina, hipsters with mustaches, homeless people with Ipods, ambulances drunk dialing in the night, cosmopolitans here don't come with twists or a cherry, embarrassed, clumsy rock n roll type lifestyle, fernet, chartreuse and Jameson blackouts, t-shirt weather in December despite the violent mood swings of a dreary forecast, hills, cable cars and couriers, feeling old, glasses and stretching out the back, glossies of bright eyed naked Asian girls getting shuffled in with bank statements in Chinese, sourdough bread smell and Dungeness crab, lost tourist, lost evenings in a hotel room, lost souls, living on empty under the sun a bright smiling calamity. The beat of the city, the beatest Last but not least me and in the new year I'm one of them. I can't take it with me and I can't live forever. Living the dream even if it's on empty. Telling everyone I meet about my sweet little Santa Fe, Raves, cowboys and king George Listening to new music, experimenting with sweaters Driving myself sane. – Going for kicks, ending up with bruises, blah blah blah Bygones becoming be gones becoming… In short a love letter penned with stolen sips of whisky, ginger ale on my breath Tasting persphephone's pomegranate Juices running down the sides of my mouth And tracing my fathers' footsteps. Howling at the moon.

Non descpript thursdays in the mission...

16 Jan 2007

You know, its not that I ever want to sound grotesque or obscene. I just want to write my little stories, tell you about my little adventures and have a jolly old time. Not too much to ask for. Its not like I could've planned my night out in the mission. I don't make these things up, unless noted I don't even elaborate. I just report. Cold hard objective style.

It was around 11 at night and I just closed the bar where I work. My co-worker Eric (not my roomie) and I were going to hit up some bars in the mission and get swerved. All seemed in order. He had a car and we stopped down in Hayes valley to pick up a friend of his. Somehow or another Eric didn't get the name of the bar right and we stopped at the wrong place. I know I'm in San Francisco, I know it's the heart of gay culture but I just don't think about these things. So I walk into the club, walk passed the 6'4 Irish bouncer who was dressed as Donna Reid and into...a tranny bar. The music stopped. The crowd inside grew silent.
Stared at us.
The people on stage doing some cabaret thing stopped.
Everyone stopped and stared, and stared and stared.
Being sober, I didn't quite know what to make of the situation.
Do I start belting out Madonna classics?
Do I vogue?
Do I order a blue cosmo and bitch about the new goldfrapp cd?
As one the crowd smiles at me, bats their eyelids.
Beehives, polka dot dresses and high high heels are all a titter in
antica - pation.
I back the fuck up out of the bar, careful to not let them see me sweat.
Like woman and sharks - the gays can smell fear.
Slowly, slowly, slow-ly we back into my coworkers car.
He's fumbling with the keys. Their following us outside like coked out zombies from some sick wax museum of ktichy '70s era housewives.
Safe in the car we lock the doors and blast metallica, we don't say anything - we don't make eye contact.
Up the block we find Eric's friend - I offer to buy a round of shots, but its only beer and wine so we leave. Pussies.
On the way to the mission I call my friend tattoo Lisa from Santa Fe. We meet her outside of a bar called the phone booth. She's sitting on the stairs drinking a mini bottle of Jameson.
Offers us a sip and we pull out our flasks filled to the brim with a wicked Irish lullaby.
Safely seated and on the road again we head off into the boozy night of San Francisco.
We hit a place called Bruno's - hot chick bartenders and dudes in loosened ties slumming it. The place is a mess of young lawyers, deflated egos and the pulsating madness of 20 something rage. Bodies slamming grinding against each other in the inferno like bumper cars. Screaming train wrecks of people hollering against the wails of the Dj's top twenty - the glare of the strobe lights pulsates rhythmically to my heart beat.
Somehow our party spills into the street, cars whizz by like piss on an electric fence. People are hollering, shouting and spilling out their guts to which ever pavement will listen. Our uniform is couture, our dress is rebellious rich youth - diesel jeans and chuck taylors - we are crimes against conformity. I'm pushed into Beauty Bar, pushed past people getting manicures by incredible hip two toned hair women with superbly decorated fingernails and into the sweaty mash on the dance floor. Beers in hand and fernet on my lips - lovers or strangers grinding next to me, shouting things in different languages happy to be alive, to be there and bare witness on a nondescript thursday in January.
Then its last call and the cold of the street again, my eyes watery and the world hazy. People are passing out, stumblers swinging on the sidewalk like chandeliers and even though its time for bed something screams out more more more. I need to get back to north beach. Need to get home to my baby, need to take a piss.
Scandalously I scamper in the night - uncork my champagne and let it fly on a doorway. A 100 proof stream trickles away from me. There's light and a door opens and for a second I imagine that I've died. I aim my stream towards the light. I've died, and God's a Pakistani and he's very mad at me. I'm pissing in the doorway of his store- his store that's still open. That's still serving people. That I'm pissing in. They're watching me and laughing, pointing holding their sides so their guts don't fall out.
Slowly I back up.
Slow-ly button my pants.
Slow-ly back towards the street.
Am I sensing a theme for the night?
Then its a taqueria and chaos, the late night car salesman desperate to seal a deal with chicks obliterated on one to many mai tai's. They're revved up with redbull, faces red and veins bulging in thier necks. The drunks look like they've been chocked half to death libido's in overdrive - ready to explode like the deathstar in a moments notice.
I back out of the bar and wipe the lust of my brow.
Back out in the street and its hugs and slaps on the back and "Logan where were you?"
There's bottles to finish and breathless sighs and smiles and whirlwind of does and don't and half remembered finishes.
Fernet, Chartuese and Jamesone singing through my blue label liver. Couldn't hop a cab cause I didn't have cash, couldn't take a bus cause I didn't have balls and couldn't bum a ride because my friends couldn't stand. Eaten alive by the dreams of another night, stung by a drinking bee and thirsty for more I stood savagely in the street like Daedelus over the sea.

Stinking drunk and missing friends,
but patient.

now you know I'm here.

Grabbing the Shark

31 Jan 2007

Grabbing the shark by the fin... Monterrey bay If Rascal is my middle name then Danger is my first. It's not that I plan adventure - I find it's the adventure that seeks me out. Let me tell you about how I almost got kicked out of the Monterrey Bay aquarium. Let me tell you how I stared death in the face and blew it a kiss and gave it a wink. I woke up on Sunday at 8:30 am to meet with Tony and Betsy who were driving in from Alameda to take Nicole and I down to Monterrey. It was a sunny day in north beach and we decided to get some breakfast. Tony was taking his time so we followed up our food with bloody mary's at O'reilly's our favorite Irish pub. We were going to invite Eric to come with us but he's too poor. Wait, that sounds mean. We were going to invite Eric to come with us but he had to work...yeah - that's sounds good. So we get in the car and Tony informs us that he has a 30 pack of bud light in the back. Usually when people say they have booze I feel l they are specifically talking to me - and I try to oblige them. By the time we get to the gas station San Jose (30 miles away) he has 10 beers left and a bunch of cans. These are the black thunderclouds that hang ominously in the horizon foreshadowing some sinister event. By the time we get to Monterrey we've mostly run out of beer (we'll I've mostly run out of his beer) and we've moved onto black label sparks. When I bought them the lady at the store warned me that they had liquor and a cop would ticket us for drinking them in public. I re-assured her by telling her that we would only drink them on the car ride to the aquarium. Strangely she seemed OK with that. Then we drive and drive and pass sand dunes and the ocean. By the time we get to the aquarium the sparks are gone and my flask is empty. We debate getting margaritas and decide against it - for the good of both our fellow man and the fish. The aquarium is is a sea of silent despair. Stupid sea otters bang there heads on the glass of their holding tanks as I selfishly hold my hot-dog out in front of them. Above the entrance to the cafe where the beer is sold is a huge whale skeleton. That means I'm standing under a huge whale skeleton. I keep wondering what the other fish think when they see it. We thought Abu Gharib was bad. By this point our words are slurred and we're stumbling and pushing past the smaller slower children. We're a wreck of tourists as we stroll around incredibly fresh sushi. The first and near last exhibit we went to was a touching tank. I've been to touching tanks before but usually they involve ecstasy and house music. This was different. Little kids we're getting their pre-pubescent rocks off picking up star fish and petting sea anemone's. No menthol ciggarettes, no back rubs just sea cucumbers and paper towels. The way they had it set up is that there is a touch tank of the fish I just mentioned and then another tank that connects to it via slotted holes in another room. In this other tank there were sharks and sting rays and more sharks. Nothing big, length of my arm at the max. But still - sharks. So I surprised myself by not falling into the tank and reached down and tried to touch a sting ray. Nicole tried to take a picture. Then Tony tried the same - Betsy got the shot. I made a Steve Irwin joke and a little kid teared up. This wouldn't be the last time. Those thunderclouds from earlier - they were starting to rumble. So this shark comes cruising by me and I have this flash back of my grandfather on fishing trips holding up shit he pulled from the sea by the tail and smiled for photos. I make a grab for it. The picture at the top of this post was taken right when I grabbed the shark. It felt like wet leather and power and I grabbed it's tail and yanked. Two things happened. One, time slowed down. I saw a lady in a uniform start to slow motion yell at me, noooooooooo! as she pushed people out of her way to get to me. Two, I grabbed a fucking shark. The realization hit me when it turned on me and tried to bite me. I pulled my hand quickly out of the water and splashed some little kid who was in a stroller. He started to cry too. I turned around to run, someone tried to grab me and I ducked and that dude bumped someone else who dropped their camera into the tank. Things were happening quickly now. Betsy, Tony's girlfriend was bewildered but thankfully Tony had been through this before (see the pickwick hotel episode) he grabbed her and quickly walked out. The person who's camera was in the aquarium was yelling at the guy who tried to grab me for knocking it out of her hand as I was trying to get away. Then the shark who's highly agitated makes a pass at her, tries to bite her. People are in an uproar. Children are crying. Asian tourists are taking pictures. I back out slow and quick just as security starts getting there. I'd love to tell you how we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the jelly fish, yellow fin tuna and other delectables and while we did those things I also spent time looking over my shoulder for bigger fish - you know...the kind with badges. We spent the remainder of the day eating mexican food, drinking pitchers of margaritas and talking in old tyme voices, see. We drove in inky blackness through Carmel and made it to a target in some sleepy sea-side town before getting gas and heading home. On the way we polished off three cigars, two bottles of wine and the majority of Nicole's sobriety. We finished the night almost as we started it, in the bars of North Beach. Safe and secure home again and bewildered how we got there.

An Ode to Jack (either Daniels or Keroac

We are on the road again
pre-emptive surgical shots
followed by laser chasers
glee fully running through
our spirtual deforestations
lost
in a karaoke bar
trapped in San Francisco
the only way out
is blowing kisses from the end
of another bottle
merry makers
fools...
rosey cheeked &
gin blossomed
our ugly beautiful way
is our golden escape

Further Adventures in the Emerald City

I keep exploring the city, looking into its nooks and crannies, tearing it up like an english muffin - searching for truth at the end of a fernet bottle. Observing, interacting and growing. Thumping on my chest and growling at the bay like a convoluted King Kong. I bartend at a place called Shanghai 1930, where people either think I'm either half chinese or Ben Affleck or both. Chinese chicks tell me pick up lines, gay guys offer to help me network and the staff - my friends help me to feel at home. I like working in bars because I like the people. Charismatic Pea-cocks displaying our feathers for ones and fives...

Time finds us traveling by geographic nationality, flying on mimosa stained lips, doing the dip at shabu shabu in Japan Town, crunching and vibing at Ethiopian cafes' on haight, soaking in the sun at Lime in the castro, the party that never ends. Networking, growing spreading tentacles like insane octopuses hell bent on cliched youthful ambition. Entering the dark days, wondering where my moneys gone?

Then two Sundays ago it was if the world up and ended. Bay to Breakers, The devil, Christian brotherhood and kegs being pushed along in shopping carts.

Bay to Breakers, an annual race, a 12k through the city - from the bay to breakers, from sober and well intentioned to sticky and heaving. It starts at 7 am where upon 60,000 people get costumed or get naked and get totally and completely obliterated. Like a million salmon swimming upstream into a distillery, fighting against the current of old people with exposed dangly bits and hungry bears with leather hats.

We were a blur of glowing atoms swirling in a vortex of cops on cycles, tequila runs and far to many red headed sluts. It was a hot, hot sunny one and we we're unprepared and over intoxicated, the sunburn that followed served as a reminder and not as a warning sign- fifteen minutes into it and we had howled into that wet hot american morning...camo covered banshees of death screaming for blood in the form of triple distilled mexican delights. Inebriated evil doers enunciating every syllable of "show me your tits".

Under aged, undressed women undulated down divisidasadro towards dimensions of diluted discotheque street teams hell bent on arranging an arousal from either the city or the street, everyone in between taken hostage by the ruckus and commotion that was left sputtering out in their path.

This is in the street, streamers, couches, tikki bars, alt rock bands, EMT's casually practicing on beer bong stunts gone horribly, horribly awry. There's to, to many things to register, a keg in a shopping cart, my legs in the air, Tequila filled super soaker, tony punched chase. Somewhere along the way I fall off of a moving truck, how I got on is a mystery, the gash on my leg and the thorns in my hand clues...

Wailing hot sun, black outs for hours, bruised and bloodied, sore but smiling -surviving the Apocalypse one shot at a time.