building a bridge

if we are to build this bridge together, arm in arm, blood dripped back and forth, then i must be allowed to waver from distractions like my odor, hygiene and fingernail length. i need my nails to grip earth, to claw at the rocks as you use my lithe body like a lever. i will brush my teeth on the daily even twice if my breath makes you feel a morbid discomfort. i cannot, however shake the crunchy crust from mine eyes. i will clip my long curvy eyelashes if the beauty becomes to much for you to bear. speaking on odors, beneath my pits, you must know that i have fans, women squarely who'd love to live beneath them, intoxicated by that smell and so for them i must keep all anti[s] and deo[s] at a fair distance because they live for that au natural, manly musk i spray. and on the compass click, and those supernatural, early rising roosters in my head i can wake and look at my old, tired face and say, "they're not paying me to shave." so i do not shave, pal. i just want you to understand that we are building a bridge, no clean shaven man has done so, and no clean shaven man ever will, at least not by choice. every man's tried their hand at it, growing the whiskers outward, shielding the cheeks, the chins, parts of the upper neck with fur that can mask something they feel lacking. for mine its a way to look my age. that's all. a way to look an age, my age. god bless my beard.

at the end of the day, building this bridge as much as the light allows, i will go away from it, and drink ales, browns and whatever gets tossed my way. i will raise my eyes and scope west hoping the bridge will lead us somewhere. you'll be there too. you will smile from stools opposed to mine and laugh at my artifice, snail jokes, straw impersonations and compulsion towards hysteria, in my ennui, in my neurotic plebeian-pigpen swirling dervish of browned cloudy climate in the room.

as we build this bridge I will close my third decade and begin a fourth i want to ditch these cozy encounters for something the same but more refined. i will become your local scoundrel. we will finish the bridge and form a union. Local 69! Ha! no we're more original than that, remember? local 8. local 74. fuckit whichever number isn't taken. scoundrel, now this isn't an ugly word. okay, its ugly but understand this my friend, its simply a veneer. instead of throwing your shitty half wet hair in a beanie, lets make it slick backed and exposed. enough pomade to drain that dapper dan can straight to those lockes. be careful not to think that this will change you too much fine trapper! those lagers, the sordid assorted browns and the random in between might not come as frequent but its all about, what Tom Wolfe phrased in The Pump House Gang, the life. the appearance of a true swindler, to look as if one's a grifter.

look like something your not. we've been cheated in life because of the kindness of our faces. we must fold hair in halves. pump up the oil steam stream, build up a lather, find it in the crease, the grease that is. wax your stache. sleep like Poirot, with the long Scroogy sleepy dunced-cap. not an oily, man save the hair. dress as a fox would. feel the SOL, on your skin and darkened hues of your flesh. find heat in the dead of winter. deliver news to friends with sarcasm and drama. open up yourself with a can opener. write, please write.

Battle Axes

I scolded this old lady at the taqueria the other day. She cut me in line. I couldn't help it. I was standing in line and she was having difficulty deciphering who was waiting for their food and who was in the line. She asked almost every person around the counter including me if we were in line. The window opened for me to take my order and this old battle axe snakes me.  I hadn't eaten all day so I felt justified in my reaction.

"Lady, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

She turned to me and looked up very sheepishly and blank saying, "I asked if you were in line."

"And if you recall my answer was yes, I am in line, now get behind me and wait your turn."

I was so irritated that I forgot what I wanted to eat. The guy at the register kept asking me all these questions and I couldn't come up with the answers.

"Regular or super burrito, avocado, sour cream..."

As I turned around to sit down I noticed that everyone was staring at me like a crazy person and it kind of hit me.

Am I a prick? I mean I know I'm not a prick in my personal life. I'm giving and thoughtful. I sacrifice for others.  But how is it that we should judge ourselves? In our personal lives solely? I mean if I'm an asshole at the taqueria on a Friday afternoon in front of a bunch of strangers, does that seal me up? A tremendous feeling of guilt came over me right then.  It was like a freighter dropping cargo on my back.  My food became flavorless, my mouth parched with disgust.  I used to be the nice guy and now I'm chopping old ladies heads off because she cuts me in line, delaying my food by all of one minute. What do i learn from this;

Patience is a virtue.

The other day I was waiting behind an old Filipino lady who was getting a train ticket.  She couldn't figure out how to work the add machine.  I was getting very flustered and rolling my eyes, sighing, heaving deep and loud, in and out, in and out.  But I caught it.  I realized how ridiculous it was to be so anxious about something so trivial.  So I helped her.  I asked her where she was going, added the right amount and away she went saying "thanksyous, thanksyous." I made my ticket, and followed after, walking down the escalator feeling pride in my control. Getting to the bottom I saw the old lady rushing toward the train I was trying to catch.  She hobbled her old bones right through the door as I sprinted up to see them close in my face, her waving her arthritic hands with glee and delight, a snaggletoothed smile streaking across her face. 

"Fuck me," I said. If only I hadn't helped her I would've made the train. But where's the fire

Patience is a virtue.

the 21 and Samoan drunks.

On my way to work I took the slow-lurch like 21 Hayes bus at around 7:18. I was the first one on. I love it when that happens. I love it so much that almost instinctively I shoot dastardly mean spirited glares that say get off my bus as it stops on virtually every silly little block. Today the driver seems short on patience because we are racing down Hayes like he's got a gun to his head. So its just the usual shit show, no one paying attention, listening to Ipods or doing sudoku or reading Yoga magazine, you know San Francisco people on the bus crap. After we pass city hall this big hulking Samoan guy comes stumbling onto the bus with a luggage cart filled with milk crates and a small boom box on top. He's had a few pitchers of whiskey it seems. He meanders through a thinning crowd and makes his way to the back of the bus where I'm perched on the second to last row. He's easily 6'6, a portly 300 lbs. and smells like a bar rag. The guy sits right next to me, the seat to my left was just recently vacated by some snooty-old battle axe who shakes her head as he hits the undercarriage with his smelly forrest green sweatpants.  

"Scuse me."

"Not a problem," I say with a grin.

This big guy grabs his cart from his right and begins to fiddle with his boom box. He turns the power button on finally and 'Man in the Mirror' by Michael Jackson begins blasting, I mean, loud all throughout the bus. I'm laughing uncontrollably as some suit pesters him to turn it off. He stands up lunging toward the cart and as he does the bus hits the breaks.  His inertia clearly misaligned, the bus sends him sailing, this huge hulking frame directly onto the lap of some helpless chinese woman as he yelps a drunken cry while falling. He hits her lap and I look over my shoulder and its like i'm looking at some post apocalyptic cage fighting beast with the body of a Samoan man and the wisdom of an old chinese concubine, except for the writhing pain on her face and his thrashing around like he's drowning. Along with a mutually entertained patron we grab the behemoth by his hands and set him down in my seat. 

Crisis averted? No fucking way. The radio's off, the drunk is seated and aside from a few shriveled old bones now turned to dust it seems the old lady's only going to suffer mental scarring. I'm sure the guy was a little disoriented but it didn't stop him from opening a fresh bottle of Jim Beam and taking a few gulps. I look at him while he's sipping, as if inciting him to answer a question. 

"I make my money the old fashioned way," he says surly and contemptuous, cross-eyeing me.

"Oh what way was that," I say back, realizing I've instigated an epic tirade.

"I rob banks for 'em," as his volume goes from tolerable to shrill between predicates. 

"Oh fuck, now I've done it," I say.

"1974, Bank of the West. I got my money the old fashioned way."

"Oh my."

"1978, Seattle, Washington.  First National Bank. I excaped{sic} to Vancouver, cause I earn my money the old fashioned way."

He goes on recalling all these banks he robbed, always narrowly avoiding the law somehow.  We go another block and the bus comes to a stop. The driver walks through the thick crowd and asks the guy to shut the fuck up.

"But I earned my money the old fashioned way...I robbed banks for it!"

Again the driver says to quiet down, but he just keeps on screaming. The driver exits out the back door and tells a cop across the street. Almost everyone, aside from myself and few old people get off the bus. The entertainment value here is off the charts in my book and i'm still making great time to work. 

A short square faced police officer steps onto the bus with an air of confidence and authority despite his smallish frame. 

"Whats going on here," the officer says examining the scene as another taller, sturdier officer come on board.

"Huh?"

"We need you off the bus fella, you're disturbing the driver and the other patrons."

"I made my money the old fashioned way, I robbed banks for it" he says standing up.

"What was that," the officer says his tone shifting dramatically. It was at this time, just after the Samoan stood, that I noticed just how small this cop was.  He must've been about 5'9 and 160 pounds soaking wet. 

"I made my money the old fashioned way, I said! I robbed-"

"Alright fuckstick," and this dwarf of a cop grabs this guy, his herculean frame now floundering as his wrist replaces where his face was just the second before. A visceral grunt comes spewing from the cart pusher and he's flaying to and fro on the ground between seats. The larger cop helps pin him down and cuff him. The two officers then raise him to his feet as odd, incoherent drunk speak drivels out his mouth.  They begin to push him out the front door till I speak up.

"Wait! What about his cart?"

"What about it," the taller officer says.

"Its probably all he has,"  as I say this they continue pushing him out on to market street and then I remember that they're SFPD and probably have zero tolerance for dealing with drunk vagrants at 7:45 in the morning. 

I'm trying to be a good samaritan to a Samoan today so I grab his smelly cart. I approach the officers to take it with them but they're not interested and I can tell if I don't let it go they're going to put me in the paddy wagon with my new friend.  So I ask them if he's going to county lockup or the tank and they drive away.  I'm holding the Samoan's smelly cart and look at the clock and realize I have to get to work.  So I let go of the cart and leave it at the bus stop.  On my way home, I passed by the bus stop and the cart was gone so I went home and had a drink in honor of my two headed Samoan-Chinese vegetable shopping drunk bank robbing beast. 

Fuck, what a city.

blackout. justice verbatim

today, on the N train, heading home I got up from my seat at powell street to let an old man take a load off. i had my headphones on but for some strange reason this obnoxious girl starts talking to me even though i can't hear a word.  i pull off my ipod ear shredders and say with a loud tinge of impatience, "huh?" she starts over. 

"that's really nice of you to give your seat up."

"oh thanks," and I started to place my earphone back in, but she kept yapping.

"what do you do?"

i hate this question. the main reason is that I'm not exactly proud of my station in life and i'm not spending my days doing what I love to do.  the second reason is what the fuck is it to her, what i do? what knowledge, what level of knowing, to what degree and simply for what reason does her knowing what i do improve or degrade or balance the three stops on muni conversation that is unfolding in front of her. is she going to go home to her roommates and say, "i met this really nice guy on the train today.  he got up from his seat for an old man.  he's a[n];

dental assistant

aesthetician 

social worker

game show host

lifeguard

cop

rabbi

third base coach

railroad worker

hobo

rodeo clown

film maker

bartender

architect

drug dealer...

what have you.  does this small meaningless conversation about what a stranger does to make ends meet have some refined vision of quality, levity and gravity? its like talking about the weather when its clearly shitty outside. not like, "its raining cats and dogs!" which is declarative, descriptive and obvious, but trying to maintain a long insightful exchange with a complete stranger about the temporal differences between two o'clock yesterday and today.  if she'd had a cup of something in her hand I would've liked to snatch it from her and pour it over her head then kick her squarely in the ass two stops too early.  the entire train would've erupted into a raucous, riotous applause and laughter. the old man would've been so thrilled by this spectacle he'd feel compelled to give me back my seat and two other girls who know better than to start a conversation would begin to rub my shoulders and feed me grapes off the vine. 

so how did I reply?

"I'm a producer."

"cool," she panted like a dull automaton. "what do you produce?"

"oh, sandwiches."

i could've lied. I should've lied. I wanted to tell her I was a mortician.  I told a girl this once at a party and she was totally taken in by it. she wanted my number and I had to fabricate the existence of a girlfriend to get her off my tail. i feel like the girlfriend bit was a bigger lie. 

i could've told her that I was health inspector, an investment banker, a nude model, a cobbler, a goal tender, an accountant, a chimney sweep, a linguist, a plumber, a chef, a mustache trimmer, a back alley jazz trumpeter, a catman [married to the cat lady], an arms dealer, a dread lock collector, a concierge, an illusionist, a cigar roller, a writer, a band leader, a lawyer, a greaser, a crook, a grifter, a musician.  i hate this question. its as if all we are is what we do. how bout this; i'm just trying to live and go fuck yourself for asking.

I didn't though. I told her the awful truth of my shady, futile existence.  

she started talking about herself and the non-profit she works ad nauseum. I smiled, nodded and drifted at once, fantasizing about a life with no trips on the smelly, humid cauldron that is the N line, stinking to high heaven of sweltering radishes and turnips, softening herbs and ginger type roots, all pink bags in hand on our way to chinatown west. all these images are floating, the olfactory-ultra sensory detailing meandering around me until finally she says bye. 

thanks for the pointless infinity of verbatim and all the love now lost. nice work. 

meet the lithe

hi.

this is for the lithe, like me. we're kind of lanky in between people with good hearts and sharp eyes. we get flattened by people just like you everyday. we don't come around so often. you'll never find two of us in one family.  you can see our hearts beat. 

when i was eight, i was on the swim team for my neighborhood. i was great at backstroke. twice a week we'd have swim meets against other neighborhoods. i always placed first in the backstroke. i was nasty. this is a specialty of us, the lithe.  between heats, the girls in my neighborhood would approach me and ask me to take my shirt off. this wasn't so they could admire my physique in its pre-pubescent glory, on the contrary! i was mad thin back then just as i am now. my chest cavity was so un-muscular that my big heart would beat through my sternum.  it was kind of like biology class for eight year old girls.  i think for some reason this had a great deal of significance for me.  there was this cruel fascination about the sickliness of my body, my gaunt, malnourished features that gave these children the sensations we adults might experience rubbernecking some horrific traffic accident. 

it was around this time that my mother began to worry about me. from her point of view, it made no sense; she had two other boys flanking me at either end and both were solidly built, well fed, voracious trashcan appetites.  all of us were thin to be certain, but not to the degree i was. it was in her great sense of hysteria that my insecurities about my body image manifested themselves. my mother had a knack for working herself up into a frenzy and with this her predictable reaction was to call the doctor.

"there's something odd with his chest."

"let's take a look," said my doctor. his name was dr. killinger.  after pressing on my chest for a few seconds, dr. killinger looked up at my mom. "pigeons..."

"pigeons?"

"that's right, pigeons."

"what does that mean, pigeon's," my mother replied with a tremble of annoyance.

"pigeon chest."

my mother grabbed my arm and pulled down with force till she reached my wrist. 

"put your shirt back on, right now," she said.

i put my shirt on and my mother shoved me out the door. in the hallway, i could hear her raise her voice at the doctor, but i can't remember what she said. i'm sure it was something spiked tongued and defensive on my part. i mean its gotta be tough to hear a doctor tell you that you're son has some rare condition that will steer his life down some road of self-conscious doubt.  every mother believes her children are perfect just the way they're built and i think in some small way this was my mother's very unique brand of showing me how perfect she thought i was.  after a minute in the hallway, my mother came out, very composed and told me to come back inside. dr. killinger said that i had nothing to worry about, that in most cases it grows out or "levels" as he put it.  

"what about his weight, his frame," my mother asked.

"he's in great shape."

great shape? ugh. i was eight! 

so life moves on and i'm the prototypical skinny dude, long and frail looking.  big hands, large wide feet, the torso of a ladder, waldo in the face, monkey armed and two stumps to lunge with that don't match the rest of my body.  there are worse things.  

fall guy

there is something symphonic, like heavy strings in my head that is cracking me open like an eggshell.  all of me pours out like loose soup into a hot pot and i can feel myself rise to a boil.  my flesh, bone and blood make a stinky compote of gelatin texture when risen to the right temperature. there are other ways to find torture. 

beautiful voices are resounding in my minds eye.  they are echoing sentiments.  everyone, the people i think i know, in a short breath i call them friends, more exhaustively i see them as taxes on my feeble psyche. i see them as everything in the world. i'm laid out on train tracks for them to sleep soundly this night.

i learned just recently in a drunken moment of clarity that this is a stupid fault ridden emotion, delusional at best and with a great deal of certainty is the manifestation of my naivety.  oh how sad a bridge that was to cross, and lonely to boot.  you got look out for yourself, close your heart and just keep your eyes on the road.  you take one look back and someone else has taken the reigns, sealing your fate for a lifetime as a fall guy.  you can't ask too much of anyone, ever.  so the eclipse of my heart and my mind has begun the slow struggle to close its doors. what a sad, bitter, metallic tang of reality that was, is, becomes...  

i'm taking big chomps of this tepid pill but its too big to swallow in one bite. i'm hacking away at it with due diligence. its the size of a cheese steak served dry, no mayo. it sees i got problems. 

*have you ever seen the movie Chinatown? its one of my favorite films.  there is a scene where Faye Dunaway's character, Evelyn Mulray, calls Jack Nicholson's character, Jake Gittes.  he answers the phone and she says with distress in her voice, "are you alone?" he says back to her, "aren't we all?"*

i'm leaping up this cauldron of consternation.  i'm alliterating for no reason at all. the pressure at my temples goes tick, tick, tick, tick... though, i'm sure to make your eyes close, to make you shield your face from my airing of grievances, from my shoulder of lonesome crowded eastern faded firelight, from septic tongued desperation, from mirrored callow promises of my so called "oh my brothers", from listening time literate exasperation, from henry dancing with me on stage till the bouncer kicks US off, from the hope that this can touch you without touching, from protection hermetically sealed in my soul that now launches outward to merge with infinity forever and ever, from the tiled inner self dwelling and building a place of stone catapulting me pass people who could give a fuck and from that shallow nepotism displayed on the daily toward your kind faces that contract and expand, sullen by good times and awaken from this solemn incantation of heavy powered exhaustion, breathlessly searching for a place on a rock. 

excuse the drama, but i'm feeling blue.

forte: an afterthought

today i begin once again to pick up the pieces of my half labored life.  today isn't an attempt or a proverbial stab at genius. rather it is my sincere hope to put down enough words to make myself exhausted.  Again, I'm not looking for uproarious laughter or a symphony of clapping as the last words are read.  i just want to send you to bed with a feverish smile that burns inside, not on the cool bright whiteness of your teeth.  

i must get my life organized if i am to achieve even nothing.  my room in particular is some kind of prehistoric cavern of deathnails, eyelashes of a shrew and hairs of a loser, roil, boil, toil and bubble! with a black trash bag and a machete i trek into the black vortex that is my room. what came of all these half drank glasses of what's now distilled-filthy grey water? how many collections of fliers and business cards does one need? why are these books and magazines strewn Appalachian shanty house style piled up like some destroyed house of cards? why dirty socks and undies on the floor and not in the hamper, my son? why without the semblance of earthquakes or tiny tremors do records fly off the wall? bus schedules from last November really need be around? discarded beer can, a sip left, dust mounted top region, blue fuzz inside no doubt, throw out, sound good? newspaper articles on deposed chieftains, heads of state now in disgrace can enter that black bag, no? go get colds, from three week sheets need a wash and a fold, summertime lightness, give it a chance. some girl named andrea's number on a napkin, really worth keeping, since you don't remember her in the slightest? a million and seven dust-bunnies hop away with agitation from the loud vacuuming freeness about to ensue. 

my eyes glance over everything i place in this bag.  little tiny memories or casualties of my faulty lifestyle of wine, women and song [except without the women or the song, and whiskey and beer instead of wine]. Alas sobriety struck me as an option to alleviate the cold shiver of my bones each morning and night, to stop the gagging-acid-reflux recurrence, slow the peril in my blood, ascetic scribe gets a good night's rest for once, a Balzac-Prozac adventurer finding his will in the stellar flux*, kebabs of great luck on the grill and a portion of water that flows into my mouth just as the beer used to surged like wine; it quenches my thirst, finally. 

they call all this illusion or delusion.  i just want call it my beginning. 

*Thanks to the bald guy on the right-------->