I have been reading Bukowski’s “Ham on Rye” on this trip and at times it seems like a mirror of my youth written in better prose by a man far more talented then I can hope to be. Anyways reading this has been quite therapeutic on a multi faceted level. First I am learning and absorbing his style, like some sort of literary fan boy sponge / sea cucumber. Next I am working out questions I have about why I am the way I am. Lastly I am being pushed into writing. Whether it’s shitty drivel, sophomoronic banter or the rare dialog that I am not ashamed of as much as I am of the other crap I pump out and never show anyone, I am writing. That’s all that matters isn’t it?

So I arrived at the Goodbye Lenin Hostel this morning, I was empty, quiet, decorated a in red communist motif and lacking people. In my old age people can be a nuisance so it’s perfect. At least it was until I found out that this was not the case and that it was fully booked with a group of backpackers form Germany. I was about to have a cloud form over my parade until a cosmic pun dispelled it in a moment. You see I asked out hostess where these German backpackers were and the response was brilliant.

“Oh all the Germans went to Auschwitz”

AHAHAHAHAHA of course they did.

1. Lawn chairs can be musical instruments,
2. Vodka has no effect on me
3. Polish wedding parties are an excercise in endurance
4. 40 seconds are not enough time to blog

my father has never been single to a horse race but he sure loves those ponies

My father once said that if you make friends with the fat man
some grease will definitely rub off on you and you too will get fat
he ignores the implores of those who truly love him
those who tell him to take care of himself and eat lean

the doctor called a few days ago said his cholesterol is too high said his blood sugar levels are double what they should be, still he wants to get greasier

but my father ignores reason and presses his luck
chasing the dragon dragging some bucks
And I fear he will do this until one day at last
that dragon will about face and burn his dumb ass

I stopped eating meat a while ago but I still feel a tad guilty looking at the mangled carcass and thinking “leftovers”.

So we are officially in a recession and I wonder which of my friends will become “the leftovers” and when will I join them in the quest to avoid freezer burn. I guess America stopped being Rockwellian long ago but we were too busy shoving cranberry sauce into our collective pie holes to do much about it, I’m sure we may have even laughed at some of the penis sketches. Now I find my self asking what next? As well as the following questions:

• Do I abandon the dinner table and go to a different one?
• Maybe there will be more turkey and if so who will get rid of this one?
• Maybe there will be dessert, oh I hope it’s pecan pie, will there be pie?
• Why the hell does my father in-law keep pouring me scotch, does he hate my liver?

The only answer I came up with was let’s go to Sarasota. We did. It was grand. So I guess this is not the game over many men in suits and ties claim it to be. It’s more like, reset. I’m cool with that. Florida isn’t that bad of a place if you have a car and I always wanted to write a book.

The Past

Interpol was my exit song. It played as I drove the moving van west toward Philadelphia. It played as I gave the last of my middle fingered gestures to the last new york cabbie I would feel a connection to as a New Yorker. It bounced around in the cabin of that rickety van while I tried to hold back a few stray tears that were welling up from my wife as she mentioned how beautiful the sky like was in the late afternoon. “Fuck this city” was all I could say, New York knows I didn’t mean it but that’s what she trained me to say. I like to think I made her proud that day. Anyways this song is special to me on many levels some of which I won’t bore you with the others you could never understand unless you lived here for a while. I mean really lived here, not went to school here then off you go. The city is a dirty whore when you live it, try to pay rent knowing you can’t afford it, knowing you shouldn’t pay it. My friend Lucas the one with the blog on the side says he doesn’t miss it a bit, I think he’s making New York proud as well. To truly love this city you have to be willing to tell her to fuck off because when you go back it’s like that angry awkward sex between two ex’s who know what the other likes.

The Strokes remind me of one of the many things I hated about the City but in a way I love to this day. Kind of like a spoon full of heroin helping the medicine go down.

The Present

Chicago is like the girlfriend you have but are not that into. The only reason you stick around is in the hopes of getting with one of her friends and because she is polite to your mom. You know it’s not going to last. Perhaps she will go to college out of state and you can go on with your life. You try to distance yourself from her but she just wants you to love her as much as you did the girl before her. She just wants you to be happy even though you secretly miss the abuse and head games you ex provided. So she agrees to an “open relationship” in the vain hopes that this act of selfless apeasment will win your affections but all you do is whore around and look toward the day you leave her to cry over you and call you up in the middle of the night asking if under different circumstances you would have married her. Of course you are polite but you know better don’t you? I’m sorry Chicago (but not really). I know I’m a bastard for using you like this but the harder you try, the less I love you.

Lawrence Arms (one of my favorite Chicago punk bands second to The Vindictives) explains my life accurately…

Rise Against croons…

The Future

Ahh California the goal. Ponce D’Leon was wrong about where the fountain of youth was, wasn’t he? You know why I love you, you remember the first time we played “I’ll-show-you-mine-you-show-me-your’s” under the orange tree in your father’s backyard. You were my first kiss, the innocence of childhood before all the uglyness and hair pulling during sex. You didn’t care that I had an accent or that I came from a coutry that was dominated by a country you were mad at. How could you, how could we, we were young. I never stopped thinking about you. Nothing sexual, just your warm smile and sunkissed hair that smelled like coconuts even in the late evenings.

The Ramones teach many lessons and should be an auditory requirement for all teenagers but alas our youth is doomed to listen to the likes of Soulja Boy and other such poisons. I think of the The Ramones as my safety blanket, they reassure me that, “hey three chords is all you need to be happy so fuck Mozart and the Midwest, eyes on the prize bucko, eyes on the prize”.

NoFX will be played very loudly when I finally pack up and leave.

I swear coconuts.

So here I am hanging out with my then girlfriend and some friends who just finished playing a fantastic set to a bunch of self absorbed celebritarts and their bored assistants. The few of us who where there and never had a spread in any magazine loved the set. Unfortunately the band no longer exists and the world will never know what they missed.

So okay we are all sitting on this couch, the band is sweating all over it and coming off their performance high, like unknown bands get when they think they are around the corner from that big break. We are just getting into the deepest crevices of the chill groove, melting into the couch, alcohol is being awesome to me, when this huge gorilla of a man insists we have to leave as quickly as possible because the couch has been reserved.

How the fuck is that possible? How you reserve a couch at a loft party? This is what I thought but “bleeeeeeeh” is what i said. Inability for intelligent conversation is one of the flaws of alcohol the the positives worked out in my favor in this situation. I just sat there unrelenting in my chillax mode unimpressed with the body mass of the furrow browed man in front of me, knowing full well that my pal alcohol will deaden the pain of any punches that find my face. At most the man will get some puke and blood on his cliche suit. The man seemed to be aware of this and turned his attention at the couch in front of us with a more desired reaction.

Now I was interested, what douche tells bodyguards to clear couches for their entourage. To my amusement this was not a douche but a douchess. A pixie body with the face of a meth addict standing before me was the color of poser. Pink with black hair superlow cut jeans that covered her abused naughty parts by either sheer will or some sort of dark magic. She began to, or continued to, act like a complete trollop by screaming loudly and telling her friends not to sit down because she and her fuckstick wanted to make out while jumping on the couch. I get it you are the rebel, you are the bad/tough girl, you can do what you want and no one is going to tell you otherwise not even Maury Povich. Except you’re not. You opened up for N’Sync and more recently Justin Timberlake, you sold your soul to Sony BMG, and you hire bodyguards so you can sit on a couch. Yeah a real bad ass.

So with Pink’s next single, “So What”, going for radio adds August 18th and her new album ready for purchase October 28th and pirating shortly before that, I wish miss that-couch-is-mine continued success at her mediocrity and exploitation of all things Hot Topic.

Sorry for the shotty vid quality but you tube has upload limitations if you want the better version you need to come to my house.

The Strokes

So I was at my friends house for some roof top party, I was already halfway plastered since on the way there I picked up a 40 oz. of old E. I had a thing for fourties back then, they were cheap and got you prepped for a party pretty well also there was some sort of statement made when you roll up to a party for the urban hip acting all gutter punk, it’s kind of a reminder to the hipster bourgeois that there were still some of use anarchist proletariat around event though that was so not in. I wasn’t really into making any sort of statements that night I just wanted to get sloppy and sloppy I did get even before I started the 5 story walk up climb but it was cool since my friend was well aware that I would be wasted sooner or later and I was a dirty punker and so no party faux pas was committed. I get there and people are doing lines of coke like it was Scarface auditions. I never touched that Michael J. Foxx yuppie wanna be shit and probably never will but I love watching those fuckers do it and their pupils going all crazy and them getting all Speedy Gonzales on each other.

Anyways here I am melting into a stinky couch trying not to worry too much about the room spinning and the floor being slanted when some long haired hippie looking jackass wearing uber tight white jeans and bear chested except for a vest some banker would only wear comes crashing out of the bathroom and starts screaming about his coke being gone. The stupid dildo left it on the toilet and a dog got a hold of it.

Dogs eat anything.

This was an Australian shepherd who lived in an apartment too small for a chihuahua and was already suffering from cabin fever, except now he was suffering from cabin fever, the excitement of tons of people being around him and about a small sandwich baggie worth of coke coursing through his veins. It was as if someone threw a super bouncy ball into a rubber room then told the dog to fetch. The dog was running all over the place only stopping to puke on some poor bastard or a one of those chicks who never got the memo about the 80’s sucking ass. I was laughing so hard that a pee’d myself a tad.

The next day I asked my friend if the dog was still alive and sure enough that resilient cock sucker was just peachy. Then I asked him who were those hippie looking bear chested assholes taking up all the good chairs, talking about their band and feeding dogs cocaine. He told me and I wasn’t impressed until a few months later when all of New York hailed them as saviors of rock. I guess they were but more then that they are funny fuckers when high on coke.

Yesterday was Castro and pride night. I introduced my sister to homosexual exhibitions of affection. Ah homosexuality, god bless it. Humans fight for stupid stuff. Oil. Money. Imaginary lines some douche bags with medals and booming voices think they must protect. Homosexuals fight for the right to profess eternal love for each other, make out in public, I guess pink boas. That’s why I support them, an also because I’m European and have been confused as a gay man in America myself. What can I say, I think football is almost as much fun to watch as Japanese shit porn. No matter.

Two of my Chicago friends got married, I was a grooms man and recited some lines about birds, cracks, bells and light getting in. Leonard Cohan wrote it, Charles Bukowski owes him a cock punch. I danced to Blondie but refused to dance to “Feeling hot hot hot”, not the Robert Smith version, that one I would dance to. No Matter.

What does matter is the fact that the Cold War Kids are a laxative for the diarrhea prone. A sandpaper factory toilet that has run out of Charmin. Nicholas Cage in a Midsummer Night’s Dream. They irk me. Specifically their lyrics:

“now hang me up to dry
you wrung me out
too too too many times
now hang me up to dry
I’m pearly like the whites
the whites of your eyes

all mixed up in the wash
hot water bleeding our colors
all mixed up in the wash
hot water bleeding our colors”

Really? REALLY??? Laundry? You’re chose laundry as your metaphor than massaged some cliches into it. It’s like giving my ears a shit cupcake with pink sprinkles on it.

It’s not that I abhor cliches, they can be quite the artistic device when writing poetry. If used correctly and with a purpose, not for the sake of being a cliche alone.

So here I’ll demonstrate using well known bands that are far more entertaining than the silliness that Cold War Kids passes off as auditory flatulence. First Panic! (when they still rocked the ! before they decided to sound like the Beatles which really just makes them a Monkees cover band, doesn’t it?) at the Disco:

“Strike up the band!
Whoa-oh, the conductor is beckoning
Come congregation, let’s sing it like you mean it
No. Don’t you get it, don’t you get it? Now don’t you move.”

See that. The cliche flows into a deeper metaphor and is not talking about laundry. It makes you ask questions like who is this congregation, their fans, their critics, me when I sing along? Its deeper than saying I’m like a dirty thong for your love.

How about this:

“Don’t call me white, Don’t call me white
Don’t call me white, Don’t call me white

Represents everything I hate,
The soap shoved in the mouth to cleanse the mind
The vast majority of sheep
A buttoned collar, starched and bleached
Constricting veins, the blood flow to the brain slows
They’re so fuckin’ ordinary white”

Will you look at that you don’t even need to rehash tired cliches, you can create your own pearls of catch phrase wisdom that will eventually be abused and overuse and in he end turn into cliches.

That’s why I hate your face Cold War Kids.

I don’t mean to sound like growing up is a bad thing or even a necessary evil but it is a bit of a mind fuck, kind of like that south American midget she/he who sang about how he/she would vote for Hillary Clinton if he/she could get the immigration officer to stop laughing just long enough to validate her visa and now it’s to late and she hates America but America is still in love with her.

So flying in all that was running through my head was that crap song about flowers in your hair if you ever go to San Fran. That song is vomitus. And I refuse to put flowers in my hair, but it is gay pride weekend so I may put some daisies down my banana hammock.  Stay tuned.