PRINCESS OF THE BROKEN VOW AT MT. NEBO
Antibiotics & Ginsberg biography all at once
Strange youth overcomes me, calls to revisit Mt. Nebo
Gramps, a bookie, with Grandma Ida of juicy hamburgers
and liver cancer. Grandpa Harry, loan shark
with Grandma Ethel of insulin shock. Aunt Shirley
of stroke, while babysitting Terri's golden retriever
while Terri copped crack with Israeli lover, and buried
one hundred feet away Dad in polished granite loft
and beside him in unmarked slot the reserved resting
place eternal for asthmatic mother sleeping now
in room beside me. Decomposition has a head full of plans
a compass of generations. Needle spins to find direction
Ouija underhand glides across palmetto, saw grass
Little Havana, Miami Jai alai, sands and fill-muck
of Mt. Nebo. And three hundred yards to the west
of blood ancestors, the mocking adolescent indiscretion
to weed-grown stone, lies Lindsay, first love and suicide
Her inconstant bones...
O, my Princess of Broken vows. I'm headed there again
to face indecision, with kaleidoscope of geranium
hibiscus, and oleander, to see what nightmare goes walking
through broken red, yellow, blue glass, not wanting
to bury you again but to consult you in the reconciliation
of my past. How can I make peace when lessons are shuffled
by heat and horny teen wet messages mutate in their
journey from pride? There's nothing left but consultation
as the doctor leans over his patient applies stethoscope
to tea leaves, reads X-rays of our last Coconut Grove
reunion after a bit of musical Hair at U of M., when
in the spirit of surprise we let the sun shine in, being there
again. Drove back to my flat, then fell inside one another
Music deepened the senses, deepened confession
It wasn't so good, I don't think, no lesson or promise
of future remained. And those plastic flowers propped
against an epitaph were not the great true flowers of innocence
O, Princess of Broken Vows, you call me to Mt. Nebo
to revisit oils and perfume, patchouli, French powders
mascara stains on tear soaked corners of goose down comforter
call me back to the panic of a new moon, when tremors
racked your sweet body. Wealth, intelligence pulled you
down below a threshold of released sensation. You flailed
for possessions, consolations of a gift or fashion, couldn't
sort truth from costume jewelry, imported shoes, and stuffed toys
Boys in your shopping bags leashed for parading your obsession
What's the consolation of bays
crystal skies, palms and pearls in bleak terror?
Princess of Broken Vows, I know you've got impressions...
Mt. Nebo 3 a.m., I'm now my father's body of silken hair
Sweat lingers acrid in the closet where he primped among
fresh pressed lawyer's ties. I sought him out, a slippery admiration
In soapy shower, a child scrambling at his feet as he scrubbed
away his humanness. Even now I go to closets where his suits
dance on tireless hangers, continuing to give dimension to
a ghost, inhaling the lineament of secret sweat in Ultra Suede
and herringbone...
Mt. Nebo 3 a.m. Sensations of a man and his Scotch
Bar room ever running through mitered joints of the mahogany
casket I picked from undertaker's showroom while other men
older men, wailed in shock. My bright-eyed son, he said
I was a clever kid but naïve, perfect to please the mourning choir...
That's the one I chose, the tasteful oak, respectfully unadorned
That one over which they said blessings, cranked up into
a flesh file condominium for five years until the IRS was done
checking his records
O Princess of Broken Vows
What do you think of me now, of what I've become
My father's son?
Dad's reddened ears, elbows propped on wobbling bar in a
highbrow circus of diamond mirrors, crystal chandeliers, white
linen tablecloths, orating off color jokes from barstool at
The Embers where rib slabs, chicken, steak dripped, turned under
licking flames in windows facing the street where whole families
waited in line to be seated. The child they would cannibalize
exhaled against the glass. Here, after work each night, he escaped
telephones, secretaries and deals. Found an elegant watering hole
then drunk by dinnertime, raced home, barked directives, instructions
called it love, screwed me into my seat, the devil's advocate serving
issues. Interrogated potatoes of Vietnam, carrots of integration
hallucinogenic celery, gravy of long hair, dill hormones and
rosemary of rebellion
He loved us, Princess, but was his love true?
And you are always there, just a few deaths away
Princess of Broken Vows, between father's sweat and booze
doting and commands, floating beside me under my mother's fresh
laundered quilts and daily changed sheets. The gentle pause
of your hand over my naked thigh. Your whispered please
Long lashed eyes shuddered. Then marshmallow tropical storms
changed our faces into shy apprehension. We pulled our bodies
closer. Clouds danced behind shutters. Zodiac of rooster, rabbit
rat, dog, bagel, lox, tarpon leaped over us, changing perspiration
and condensations of stilt-rooted islands. Closer then when
the storm came up and stripped with yielding ease coconuts
from the trees, the trees bowed in supplication. Blue jeans
pushed hastily to the tight tuck at the end of the bed. We said
it wasn't really making love because we entered gently, took
hold quickly, the suspension of orgasm so clean...
...And then you turned my spine, in a broken gasp of jealousy
Broke the vow, with black eyes, flashed bright seductions
taught me broken vows with coquettish glances at good-bodied
tan boys, snowbirds who flew down south for the winter as was
the custom, from New York, New Jersey, to pick over the
winter ripe crop...
Then that golden necklace I gave you to seal the vow. I burned
around your neck with handmade links meant to possess you
while your father drove off in his white Rolls Royce with the
long legged mini-skirted sales chick from his Lincoln Rd. boutique
And your mom went highball to highball from houseboat to yacht
chatting up millionaires for a kick. You sat in the jeweler's chair
under too much fluorescent light and let the artisan work his magic
till fetish slipped from his hands and burned your neck. You swore
you'd wear it for eternity, but back from a quick visit to New York
only a pale scar remained. You blamed it got too hot in the sauna
couldn't get the damned thing off. Had to break it, can't find it now
I thought I could buy you, mark you, make you mine until the
beyond but this was only the beginning of the breaking of vows
You claimed a sheet your virginal shroud kept your flesh true
from ripping. as you tossed in a New York bed with a thick-haired
boy you swore would soon become your stepbrother. I bought it
like my father's cheap swampland, a compromise against the
tremble of deceit. The heart accepts compromise!
On my knees at Mt. Nebo, promise of a Kingdom that was
my inheritance, rays of jeweled sun. Fur-lined earrings on the floor
of my blue Fiat spider. One cold front morning before class you
jerked me off. Later that day between Geography and Drama
you refused to talk. I took your arm maybe a little too rough
The principle called me up. Counselors, Socrates, Plato and his
bunch preached me the rules. The Princess of Broken Vows
owes no fealty, explanation for the game. The spoils of genital
wars are not the same as desire or permitted in the calm green
halls of school
At Mt. Nebo, 3 a.m., where lies Princess of Broken Vows
where father would have watched me pray, drunk and proud
here in lust, trust or beyond the betrayal of the inevitable
catastrophe of extinction, the body belongs to no living man or
woman to hold too long or caress in bliss indefinitely, but
only for a twitch, the self-longing hands of a slow stroking
subterranean taboo
INTERVIEW WITH ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY VAMPIRE
AFTER THE FALL OF AMERICA
All chatter noisy brain compounds...
Three days rain, mud stained white sheet sarong
Barefoot mescaline snake walk between Palm Beach Pop Festival days
of King Crimson, beer bellied Kentucky pot smugglers
bombed dealing trunk load of Mexican kilos
Sly and Family Stone, hashish tents, barbecue outposts
of half-cooked chicken & ribs
flash thunderstorm of incense nonsense mantra
Grand Funk Railroad, nomadic sixteen yr. old
of strange seductions winks me in sleeping bag
Janis Joplin, while hallucinating guardian brother
sits lotus, weaves on straw mat in tentacular grasp of hookah
celebrates spirit of gathering tribes, and I watch midnight fire
of scrapboard, tree trunk & shoes still on feet smoke into flames
wait for Rolling Stones to fly in by helicopter
What were you doing in bars at 15 years old?
Deejay copies one buck each, Milty, uncle's high school buddy
record distributor in Hialeah sold me wholesale education
in BB King, John Jacob Niles, Weavers, Buffy St. Marie
Phil Ochs, Ahmad Jamal, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Charles Lloyd Quartet, John Lee Hooker, Rashaan Roland Kirk
Paul Butterfield. Sat with rose crystal wire rimmed glasses
in Day-Glo bedroom den of yarzheit candles in Miami Beach
Electric Lady Land...
Tangibility, my dear, tangibility!
Nothing to be ashamed of just think for the future
what you want
A little more body, we ride the note
Black light posters of huddled masses, Vietnam massacres
MC. Escher astral mantis in puzzle of paradise
Che, Tibetan Book of The Dead. Lava lamps
red glopping visions of reconstituted consciousness, pulsing
sound lights wired to "Rite of Spring" and "Coney Island
of The Mind". Belly base & spine treble rising through
topless skull vault into blue sky. Pungent sandalwood
release from eyeless bronze head of dream rider
Stash bags from Thailand, free love, "Howl" and "Kaddish"
bellowing from beehive of irreversible technological insanity
Indian Madras, flowing silks, jasmine batik
Hairless arms & chests itching under Guatemalan vests
Roach clips, burnt fingernails. Fresh nipples rosy hard press
against sun, wind, rain, and fire under white beaded lace
peasant blouses. Mexican ponchos, sweaty headbands
on stranded hitchhikers. Steppenwolf motor running black
shades beneath humming white neon of milkshake & crispy
French fried greasy spoon jukebox drive-in and Muzak supermarket
"Demian", "Siddhartha", traveler palms want to be Bo Trees
Morroccan sandals unravel on black wavy gravy asphalt
Red, yellow, blue, green paisley trading beads
Henry Miller at Big Sur, celebrating orgies of Paris
Anais Nin "Spy In The House of Love"
"Alexandria Quartet, all insufferable pages of that romance
Carlos Castenadas walking in desert silence sheds slow
rotting burden of flesh. Shaman breeze of saguaro & unrepentant
barrel cactus. We "Be Here Now", we buy here now
Becoming Pop Culture: ten year experimental film by
Andy Warhol. Snort junk, smoke Acapulco Gold,t high on
Seminole reservation grounds under cypress beard of Spanish moss
with Timothy Leary. Navajo fried bread glistening drippings
of amber honey. Sweetwater flutes grooving Sunday afternoon
Rascals grooving in bongo resurrection in warehouses of Image
and defunct hangars of The World...
$$$ booking Miller Lite models
Who rules the earth like mighty, mighty
Okay, Mr. Tricky-Trigger Mouse, 2 can play that game.
Headed west, magic plane to LA
Griffith Park "with a fifth of Johnny Walker Red",
Slept on waterbed, floated through Earl and Flaco's apartment
watching wide-eyed with hungry horny wonder as 14 year old girls
skipped on meth from bed to bed through summer of love
from unconsciousness morgue fuck to house of detention while
amoebas pulse on screen drool projection message overhead from
god strobe light mind matter sloshing, rocking, tossing dance of
atomic bliss in endless whirling dervish doomsday party. Mythical
mushroom canyon pads of The Mothers of Invention. Tubing
Sunset Strip Whiskey A-Go-Go stinking of Eric Burdon belting
"House of Rising Sun" and later "Sky Pilot" as void closes
iron lid of Placidil and Vodka over wall of blue hum and
amplified moonscape...
Living on Pop-Tarts....
Did U read story of Gef The Mongoose
the real-life Poltergeist?
"Watership Down", "Little Prince", "Hobbit" fairyland
tripping of goat-legged satyrs, Ophelia suicides, paintings cut
to pieces to recreate new paintings to cut to pieces once again
to make pieces of pieces that become nothing but pieces I can no
longer believe in. Lying on my back, in Vatican basilica a Jewish
Christ in contemplation posing for photojournalistic film noir expose
Eurail pass to London, William Blake "Illuminations", Turner
landscape uproar. Scotland to Isle of Skye peat bogs fog drenched
shoe soaked, malt whiskey, waiting for Loch Ness monster
but hallucination refuses to make appearance in mist of kind
thoughts. Madrid to Prado, relive nightmares of Bosch, Goya, El Greco
inquisition, ankle-deep in grilled skeletons of shrimp. Climbing
Malaga mountain with Swedes garbed in church defiant bikinis
under murder mask of Franco carrying six pack of beer and a
two hundred pound watermelon mourning Lorca. Innocent kisses
in Vienna park, sneaking underage hooker into palatial hotel, wants
to turn me on for free, on her back on velveteen sofa, blue jeans
too tight, can't pull her underwear off, too drunk on green wine
when security evicts us both. To Paris of Mona Lisa, Cezanne
Gaugin Van Gogh, Monet, shake with Dada laughter at arrogance
of holocaust dumb Matisse. Touch button toes & reclining marble
buttocks of ancient Rome, enchanting headless sarcophagi of
conquered Egypt. Grand Tour sailboat blown upside down in Cannes
mistral after hours of head searing calm...
Miss you very much
Have gone out 2 Thai place twice
since U wrote about coconut soup
"You are what your deep driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny."
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
London. Dianetics to clear me, pay as you go or die. Bhagwan Shree
Rajineesh to cheer me, chanting holistic dancing, wet & hard peeping
through blindfold at robeless disciples. Lubavitchers in succoth
comfort me over weeping suicide of girlfriend's drug leap back home
Minion of rabbis give me schoolroom basement bar mitzvah at 23
Apples & honey, cockles & mussels, jellied eels. Steeleye Span druids
dance electric in Royal Albert Hall. David Bowie lookalikes parade
androgynous "Changes" at Picadilly Circus, "flying so high/try to remember/
how many cigarettes/ did I bring along". Noel Coward afternoon
matinees, traveling underground to Imagist exhibition. Ezra Pound barks
on headphone from "Blast" while android rock-driver futurist exhorts
Jew hatred and across Thames the Apple Face and Stone Curtains
of Magritte. Sky in shards on floor. John Cowper Powys ruminates on
"My Floating Life". More tears shed on Edgeware Rd. over ten pound note
blown down drain by double-decker bus rescued from Ganges by deli
owner with rare wire hangar. Taxis to Singha Indian acupuncturist to free me
from peanut butter & jelly American cravings, prescribes homeopathic
oat bath, onion fast, prescription to Suffolk County Gislingham Ashram
where I clear 18th century rectory of brambles, flea infested hedgehogs
Nettle flagellation. Fought robins over first plums purple ripe on my first
plum tree. Bathe in icy sink water with naked man who ended up in jail or
just got out of jail. Cross-legged, hear ocean stream in head unexplained
then after dark walk footpath straddling cow-pie ditches to pub for malt shot
& pint of bitter, pickled egg soaked in vinegar, salty bag of chips
Only Yank on dart team, Ambassador for orange robed freaks from London
shouting tantric exorcisms as grain laden semis head for Stowmarket
Pheeling quite gratitudinous 2 even no U
May all your children have kings or queens
Or whatever they're genetically predisposed to have...
Theater is where life starts 2 make sense to children.
Becoming drunk with rage
at scarcity they fear B 4 them
Cross Canadian border to Mosport Festival, Spooky Tooth sang
"Evil Woman" while motorcycles roar around thigh strokings of Maine
hippie girl who braided my hair. I read "Fire & Ice" then Gide, "If It Die"
in sleeping bag to her. Later road weary we careened off rear tire
of tractor- trailer, pulled over huddled on roadside in nightmare roar
of barreling commerce. Stowe, VT, made love in summer shallow stream
Hair loose weaving in gently ringing current, fingers prying fruit
and sandy bottom, lips on nipples, cock probing soaked & sweet groan
when tourists came to see natural wonders, escaped down footpath
bare ass into woods, maple, ivy...
Montpelier panhandling on courthouse steps with other hippie kids
ended up in county jail. She 17, a female minor. I was 18 in solitary wing
refusing to eat from rusty pans, charged for loitering, panhandling
and maybe statutory rape. Escorted handcuffed to judge chambers
who made deal with my attorney father in Miami to put me on plane
rather than go on trial whenever they could get me on a backed-up schedule
Despite protest of outrage & injustice of pig state, spent another night in
cell, morning led by stiff jawed deputy in siren car cuffed then unshackled
in fog bound airport for coffee, the flight delayed. Exchanged niceties
with The Man, proclaimed innocence & poetry. Noon lifted shroud, on
my way home. Never saw statutory Maine Mother Earth again but dream
it over & over
Headed 2 Alice Cooper show, don't think I've given up...
(with guy who played on Lou Reed's album, did Istanbul,
Constantinople)
...drawn to Red Rock canyon of Topanga
Will go 4 run now
Rollerblade on Santa Monica beach today
So broke
& have reached point of gleeful ecstasy
Wanton abandon of all financial worries
Going 2 gym, shower, beach, shower, errands
perchance a flick
Then sit w/ book & fouled sea fowl
"How LOCKED are doors
oF Capitol Records building?"
(very locked)
And studio where final recording session will be. . .
There's much prayer & meditation involved
So don't stress about creation
But I guess
that's the surface
we must break thru...
Then Greer came spindly spotted legs in fur coat, crawled around floor
looking for runaway free base coke lost in shag carpet, "you don't know
how much that cost!" she screamed
How totally exciting U have created entity like
Wintermute in Gibson's Neuromancer
I totally get it and you and love everything U R up 2
Calling me @ 3am, drunk 2 ask me if I like
"The Drums Of Grace", which is K RIDICULOSO
Bcuz U know I love it
Furthermore like N E other artist if it gets funded great
if it doesn't, it matters not 2 Art with capital A, dig?
Not like that changes what is on Tape, dig?
The trax R magical
Fear not, young man
there is no such thing as scarcity
Yo and wuzzuup ma sista. I give a shout out ta all
the West coast homies who be keepin it real. Me, I jus
be here in G-town diggin da scene with a gangsta
lean wit ma mind on ma money n ma money on ma
mind. Love ya all but I gotsta go. It's Sunday doncha
know so I gots to go chill wit da Episcopalians. Then
me n ma main man checkin out a phat crib next door
to Mac Daddy Philbman (Regis, that is.) Then we
goin ta get paid wit a 40 n some gin and juice and
ease on down ta Conyers Farm to dig on some Polo
Last night was way bitchin Atlantic Ocean freaky lightning storm monsoon
Impossible 2 sleep, totally electrical
Thunder was right outside windows
Today, like it never happened.
Perfectly calm & beautiful
Up all night on telephone, drunk, drunk, drunk. Four walls and drunk
"Show me the way to the next whiskey bar, oh don't ask why." Calling friends
3am, beg for love and sympathy. Drunk nodding out. Wake at noon phone
still off hook in bed
Still late
I'm still up
Time for snack
No thing as linear time
Things just happen
in lines
2 make us monkey-humanoids
get it?
Things ain't so simple as they may seem:
They R simpler!!!
Immediacy is as inevitable as existence, our drawing
Of breath, and I, in fact created the experience of meeting you
Whatever lies ahead is everything
Like resume, she wants to know if I really love her, as good as my word
lessons offered with grace for free? This legacy of peace, love & understanding
now turned to doubt looking down throat of rock & roll heresy. Corporate
drumbeat of industry tyranny. Benedict Arnolds of entertainment stab hopeful
serendipity in back. Corrupt soul mates with Machiavellian bonding techniques
as taught by best selling moguls, Mephistopheles minstrels, who meet on cover
of Time to renew pacts of notoriety & incurable disease of commerce. The poison
of assassinated Kennedys and spinelessness of liberalism. Fraud of Agnew and
Watergate Nixon. Hate-monger Bully Johnson afraid of what boys club would
say if he turned his back on throbbing missiles because of a pathetic imitation
of communism. "Get Out Now!" Reagan of Free Greed, CIA drug dealer Bush
Puppet Noriega. Social Engineers Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Margaret Thatcher
Pinochet, Salinas, Papa Doc, Baby Doc, Castro, Bloods, Crips, Hell's Angels
Bad trips of power lust, Wall St. venture capitalists, cynical sellouts. Bleating
lamb consumers now at Price Club, Costco, Wal-Mart, strip mall troughs feeding
on VCR's & PC's, complaining cause they ain't made in this here America
Cellular phones to nowhere, osterizers, processors & dirigible lipo-suction
All vampires wondering what any little man can do in any little human body
What little contract I can sign to insure the vampire will find immortal truth in
me? The goodness in me? Who will catch me when I close my eyes and fall
into nightmare of no exits and Kali? Only dreams, ideals...
I hate vague-ness & amorphous job descrips & duties
Explain that 2 my lawyer
What R U offering to help me do?
What verifiable qualifications, specific gifts insomuchas my
record deal is concerned?
Partnership is a marriage, my friend, I take the whole thing very, very
seriously
Think about this hard
Divorce rate 50%, free love politically correct. Political correctness is physical
fitness in shopping cart race for fashion with Good Housekeeping Seal of
Approval. Grassroots bureaucratic Hollywood pressure expounded in Interview
philosophy says what's hip, okay, fashionable like heroin, exalting William
Burroughs, Charles Bukowski in Versace drag & necrophilia. Bill Clinton plays
sax on Saturday Night Live and we know he's hip, forget we die alone, the only
contract... Not even the most powerful entertainment bottom feeder attorney
can insure the dignity of Miss Manners when there's cold hard cash on the table...
And birds fluttered by like heartbeats & then
Drunk sad magician captured them 2 use in his act
They were sad, he was sad
Sadder still they couldn't make him happy
Mostly though they didn't want 2 B around him
Bcuz he yearned 4 freedom and
The act was beginning 2 beat their feathers off
Something blessed in my ear cavity
Every man stamps his value on himself...
Man is made great or small by his own will.
- J.C.F. von Schiller
Oh my God, a church organ would completely blow my mind!
So she's looking for a record deal, writing deal, independent label deal
Web site answer to Ani DiFranco, Alanis Morissette, Spice Girls and
otherwise haywire Amy Grants of betrayed Christian innocence, deluded
mannequins of pierced labia & self-promotion, thinks she's got a g-string
tied, sex thing wired, and smart enough for her own good. Understands
with brazen fist in air the solution to The Prophet Motive...
Beginning of my song features fairy-tale princesses
Long flowing tresses & frogs & dragons with fiery head-dresses
(Hum it until you hear it)
Shining castles glimmering leaves in light across meadows
of patchwork green
Italy in June if ever they come those perfect days.
Then there was that Italian money, like BMI royalty check
Occult card, a slice of sort of pizza fable
How am I to tell truth from friction, that's the rub!
She's a vampire...
(homeless?)
Surfing brainwave, wave crashes out of reach
Up to my neck in foam and seaweed...
I myself have had a mercifully quiet brain the last few
weex...much anticipation 4 the future....much financial woe in
the present... $8,000 in consumer debt
chasing me like rabid hyena.
By 8:30 I'll B unwilling industry slave in some
downtown LA office grumbling about 2 hrs spent in rush-hour traffic
Will work in office days
Make money to give guitar man
w/ no CD to sell in coffeehouses or @ gigs
It's a hemorrhage
Will sap my energy until one day
I'm "discovered" or so very drained I die
She's an all-American Rock & Roll Vampire with The Entertainment Industry
Wants to sell something, good-looking white girl genes at premium prices
Freeze dried & frozen for fast sale. Entertainment ginseng at Whole Earth stores
in recyclable bottle because that's what she thinks she wants, therefore thinks
America wants. And it does, she's right
The vampire knows...
Non-dairy white powder
can't legally be called creamer!
So they label it coffee-whitener
In protest because labeling is wrong and she's not what they say she is, because
she has a platinum heart and her guilt over her daddy's involvement in building
nuclear warheads. Platinum purity of disguised intent, even though she can't
sell gold she wears love-heart tattoo on her ankle and dyes blue eyes blue, would
sell gold if she could only find the vein, sink teeth into the true vein, flirting with
three legged musicians, sterile producers, radio announcers with mandatory play
lists, weight lifting CD salesman in nationwide music warehouses across from
the low fat, low salt bakeries of Salvador Dali Tanning Salons, Dalai Lama
University Workshops and Hollywood Cabala classes or anyone remotely in control
of the bloodstream. If she could find the vein, production distribution dialectic
she'd die for it. The vein. If she could only live out eternity for fame. The vein
bleached green with greed and envy, America's genetic blonde...
SO THERE I WAS!!!
In Malibu!
Dang
Monitor broke
Got home felt SICK
Plugged into someone else's monitor
Worked fine
Huge relief
So I leave home & go about my beeswax
Left laptop on porch facing ocean
While repair guy finds house
Fixes it B4 I even get back!!
Just got voice mail so I know he did it & his name is Shawn!!!
YIPPIE-yI-oh-kiYaY!
Fruit baskets all around!
(Next hat, please)
OOOoooo
It's a vampire party with an INTERVIEW!
At party last night
I told big lies to guy produces syndicated radio show "In The Studio"
He hung on EVERY WORD I SAID!
Told him entire band BUILT AROUND A DRUMMER NAMED GRAMMY!!!!!
It's a story of Transylvania in West Texas and Bram Stoker reading Rolling Stone
Billboard, Spin and Ray Gun. . .
Here goes:
"I never really met drummer so prissy B4. He comes 2 sound check in smoking jacket
and-I swear- has to have full hour with sound guys or gets huffy and sullen. So anything
he wants. Can U blame me? He's the best. Okay, so anyway, there I was, West Texas,
there's two guys hitchhiking with guitar cases, which always makes me wonder, because
no sign of broken down bus or van as far as I could see, and shit...u can see long way in
West Texas, dig? So they are really skinny, lanky...dirty-looking. But have extremely cute
dog-and dog is so fat! So in split-second decision, with no other cars for miles, I decide
to pick Them up, or at least see if they-or that dog- need WATER, yunno? I figure
anybuddy who's starving, bUt still conscientious enuff 2 ALWAYS feed a Dog is totally
okay in my book. Their names are Fang the Dog, Delbert Cash the Guitar Player and
Sangria the Bassist. They looked terrible. And I was no prize, had my Ford F-150
truck (my Dad's) with no air-conditioning. Well, the Dog is mine now, and when my
producers met His Royal Preciousness on drums, they went, 'Fuck Yeah!' got out
their guitars, tuned & it's kind of sounded like heaven ever since"
She's Vampire advertising animal rights!
And oh-yeah Guy B. Nasty asked if he could
HAVE my tape at the end of the night
B4 valet guys ran 4 his car, way COOL
Then bitchin' Land Cruiser drove up and he drove away
I have his card
HmmHmmHmmm
Picking up hitchhikers to San Francisco, stinking asleep in car, not even good
for conversation, like what's a revolution about? Charles Manson? Walking by
Haight/Ashbury clinic dreadlock Afroman leaps out of fog night alley
Frightens me home to Miami Beach and hot bubble bath foam of forgetfulness
i 4get sometimes that u r part of America
She's a Vampire advertising America, glamour in her genes, more power than
Democracy or all the wanna bes. Politicians/rock stars sucking blood from
necks of critics, radio consultants, horned and spear-tailed opportunists dancing
with legalized payola doing garlic mashed potatoes on the head of a pin
She's a Vampire with anorexic/bulimic cravings for Thai chicken soup, self-help
books, running on the beach, shouting starvation in aerobic classes while TV
implores donations to a world beat fly-faced child in Somalia
She's a Vampire conniving her way through pyramids of pasties, flashing eyes
lip-synching gospel breathy incantations in ears of lonely poets, divorced, who
can't trade a couplet for a paycheck, waiting all night in line behind endless
spoken word howlers only to read a sensitive Haiku!
She's a Vampire praising opportunity with freedom's robe hiked up to her neck
so the heroes of revolution can see the groomed genitals of a diva with balls!
1)What were you doing in bars at 15 years old?
Singing, silly. In bands, blues mostly. And lying about my age
2) You didn't mention your musical influences, should you?
Rock & meaty, less hippie-chick spiritual ethereal
Fortuna has spun her wheel upwards and I'm at bat
3) You didn't mention how you came to music, like, did you go to church after
you went to the bars?
Church trained and proud of it. Then school choir, glee club, thespians
Musical theatre, then on to the big city of lights....
4) What have you been doing with music in your adult life? Where have you
performed?
Las Vegas. My nemesis. Showgirl stint there, where I learned
YOU CAN'T WIN. Gambling's a trick!
You'll ALWAYS run out of money B4 the house will!!!!
I said, "Now go fix me a drink."
In a life of pornography and need I've seen in you a light to illuminate
this poet's attic...
Somehow, I'm the one moving gear
That's right, I'm my own roadie
You will live forever!
....I was thinkin' on a plane about this way out cat
named Mendelsohn
Is/was one of greatest composers to wander face of planet
Also born very rich
And because musicians R *supposed* 2 suffer, yadayada
And it's that suffering we
(WESTERN culture, dig?)
View as repentant & worthwhile and worthy and yadayada....
Well, people didn't warm up 2 him/his work
during his lifetime much
Didn't want 2 hear what some *spoiled* trust fund brat had to say/write
Well, of course, posthumously, that's not the case or anything
Now he's famous like Mozart
Copyright © 1998 by Michael Rothenberg
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