Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Motorboat Madness at the Matador Santa Fe and its negative 45 and I'm in a tshirt, jeans and blazer. I can see my breath, its like steam rising from the sewers. Probably just as strong too. I've got my gold luchador mask tied tight, Georges is red and green and evil and beautiful and smells like burnt paper and spilled fernet. Barging past the bouncer, we are masked men intending to wreak havoc a sleepy little snow bound town. Eyes alive with artfully danger - thick tongues and thicker still. We eat danger and breathe fire, all encompassing acolytes of eunoterpsia, a walking disaster film of pleasures of the flesh. Like a beer that's been shaken way to long my friends rush up to greet us, spilling out onto the streets, on my clothes and on my shoes. Fleshed out and real, standing on their own volition, not just manifestations of images and memories that flow through my mind when I speak to them on a cell phone 10,000 light years away. The moon is smiling on its mercurial son as we swim past the sanguine silhouettes of half remembered and half cocked grins and stares and such, to inside, in to the back rooms of the bar, in the dim 5 watt bulbs I can point out all the stars, shinning ever so brightly in that grimy Santa Fe way. Mexicans, Indians and the Gays coagulating in a pool of pear presses and tecate, limes with valentina hot sauces. Surging forth suddenly, deadlocked in a posed question, breathing in nothing and explaining everything. Triumphant in my return, flagrant in our excess, seeking fame in the redundant and paying homage to the mountain gods, grey gooses and the snow that's kicked up in the wake of their feathers. 2 a.m. tremors and its out the doors again, braced against the cold by thoughts of the next night, George is Trans Am - I Rambo Villa leading our flock of high school aged girls, artists, anemic and abrogating the spiritual in search of more sinister goals. We sweep the streets of derelicts and drunks giving them solid refuge for the next few hours into Georges house, Long live the King as Diplo speeds up the danger of the stereo. Then its All Talk and simple thumbed smiles, revelations, cheers, jello shots and two billion dollars worth of sniffled out hugs. Crazy dance parties in my gold laced mask, breathing in deeply, exhaling slowly, savoring, smiling and letting it trickle down. Making booze runs with my novia, snapping at my rucca and making long distance eyes towards the one I love. Comfy in chaos, insulting in ecstasy, the forearms of Jesus are ablaze in new found glory, from the mouths of babes come ever fouler things. Scurrying from the sun like party monster vampires we have found our way going till we're gone, bloated but still beautiful epic renditions of lives gone awry in a sleepy little snow bound town. Home again, from which I've left for way too long.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Another Saturday Cosmos, Fernets and bars I can't tell you about - sugar cafe, truck and mangerie parites, saddled with being the passive aggressive ringleader of a multi tiered circus. All of us our actors strolling by, practicing our lines. Leaving heavy references to light withdrawls. Tears for fears kind of 80's malaise. not worrying about the reason, just giving, and giving. Carictures of Eric pouring mustard on a baby seal being discussed amongst fag hags and east coast convulsions. Trying to reach the verge of forever. Wondering about hair, sourdough bread and sea shells. Fake tans, 24 hour fitness and even worse poetry. Forgetting Burroughs, wishing for Hemmingway and settling. Sloppy soma type lifestyle. The 505 blurring into the 415 in a weird Martinez tinged hazy daisy daze. Calling it abstract because we couldn't do better. Performance art. Mucho periods in a sea of grammatical errors. Envisioning poems about Van Ness. About the crack heads, lips white in froth, eyes toward heaven gazing for release that will never quite come, empty toothless smiles mouthing sorry. Grasping at and grabbing nothing - resolved in mediocrity. Reaching, straining, tongue out to the world, eyes squinting and still touching nothing. Even Evangelicals get the blues. Who would want to remember our names? Unicorns are shitting rainbows as peking ducks scavenge the bay for one last card game. Gods not in San Francisco this time of year.

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.