The High Adventures of Wereman Part 1...

Walking and stumbling through the moonlit forest Wereman ambles, stambles and sloops his way towards the barely noticeable scent of a pack of wolves playing in the mountain glen next to a  tarn. He's hungry. Hungry for greasy, salty foods that need to be washed down his fur coated gullet with fermented grain and a hint of  motor oil, Valvoline...'cause he's a man, and men like Valvoline., it sounds so close to vulva...vulvaline...mmmm....lubricants. He's sleepwalking. There is no way in Hell or Heaven would he be barefoot in a forest searching for a wolf pack at 3am...but he is.


He must bite them.


It is his destiny. His curse.


He was cursed by a 73 year-old Indian man working at a 6/12 convenience store. That's right...6/12. They're 2 better than that other place. Wereman was complaining that the hot dogs (slightly fatter Slim Jims) were severely over cooked and the espresso mocha coffee maker was just spattering brown powder chunks. The late night manager overheard and yelled at the newly appointed cashier Ashok Ganesh...73...hemorrhoids...dandruff...and just plain mad that he's working the graveyard shift when he could be watching his Baywatch Season 4 DVD collection. Ashok, funnily enough means "without sadness", stared coldly at our main character and whispered under his breath an old curse that his family have used for eons. Eons, because the Ganesh family are immortals. They found their immortality from a special chutney blended with mangoes, spices, and a blue oil that was said to come from Krishna.


Ashok, muttering his family curse, set in motion the high adventures of Wereman. High adventures because if you are still reading this, you are pretty high.


Wereman, not hearing what Ashok said, knew it wasn't good. He could smell the chutney from aisle 4 and Ashok was on aisle 1. He made a dash for it, but it was too late. The curse took hold of him. A chill ran down his back like that first bite of late-night Mexican food that you knew you should have never touched, let alone put in your mouth. "Damn...reminds me of that gal I made out with until my tongue knocked her partial bridge from her teeth...yep...there is an evil moon out tonight and it just went down my pants..."


Later that night when he was asleep, he dreamed of wolves. Not running with wolves or being one, but biting them. Biting them and forever making them walk the Earth like a man and have to get a shitty job somewhere for little money, no cable television, no internet and only an old clam-flip-top cell phone. "Oh God." they thought, "What a nightmare."


FLASH FORWARD TO NOW:


Back in the forest...Wereman was closing in on the suspecting wolves. Suspecting, because they not only could they hear him, they could smell his Axe deodorant. They knew a man was coming...but what they didn't know was Wereman was coming.
To Be Continued... 

Klaus Krazy...

Brandishing a scimitar, I swath and swerve through the jungle, looking for signs of colored ribbon and long stretches of time coded memories that can be easily unlocked if you know what buttons to push and by the size and inertia of your hands that press against me I just might talk, laugh, or cough from my nagging pneumonia that never goes away, but simply sets like the sun only to show up during the next full revolution of my world which is 40 times the size of Earth, but with far fewer people and far more beautiful monsters that will lick you until your skin comes off, further still, licking to the bone, further still to the marrow and into my blood stream, tasting my salt for their wounds inflicted by glances and slight thoughts that are slivered and cast away as fast as a lash lashing into itself below the iris that grows alone on the edge of a fish pond that all the little fishes and wandering wishes stare up through the water, through the algae, through protozoa breathing and fucking their way to immortality, at least that's what they believe and if you believe, you're half way there, just don't use mathematics or you'll never get there, you must let the numbers go and latch on to the symbols the numbers could never actually touch, from there they'll show you the heart, not just the cum filled Kleenex of formulas gone South, but the means of creating the cum and all it's glory and power before it hits the ground and becomes disseminated amongst all the other seeds of the Earth that will rise up to be cut on the edge of a blade, the blade I and other wield with frenetic frenzy and fervor that my friend and stranger Klaus Kinsky would be proud of and then he'd scream and tell me to fuck off and leave him alone...


Sent from the Black Forest...

Created To Create, Create To Be Created...

God created the Night so beautiful that lovers could never sleep during it. God created the Day so bright that the lovers would have to get up and go outside only to wait for Night to come again...


I like this thought. True? Who's to say? Perhaps like most things, it is partially true. Five percent maybe, but I'll take that five percent! I like where it takes my mind.


The universal collective consciousness of everything is hard to personify. It is so much easier to say God. To make God want and do human-like things. For Him/Her to be romantic, vengeful, and forgiving. Yes...much more poetic. In a way, from my limited knowledge and life-experience, it may be true.


That all life eventually joins a collective consciousness. Good, bad, positive and negative energy in the same cloud. What we give it, adds to itself. All knowledge and experience of every living thing in the universe...this has a power, an affect to everything. Not a Will per se, but an affect to beings with the like energy inside them.


Yes, "God" is a little like us, because it's what we give to Him/Her.


I belong to no organized religion. I do not profess to have the answer. Nor want/need to convert a single being to my way of thinking. I have no judgment.


My life purpose is to create and connect. To remind as many people as I can that we are all connected. Connected to everything. Creating romanticism, hope, passion, the celebration of being the earthly human...and everything that comes with it. Illuminating our profane darkness and hidden thoughts, I find cathartic. Acknowledging its existence lends to a deeper understanding of ourselves...and to know ourselves is to know a little more of God...the source...the Great Om...the Universal Collective Consciousness...whatever name you give it, symbol you put on your necklace, bumper sticker, if you keep it hidden in the closet of your mind, your key chain or put on masturbatory blogs such as this.


God created the Night so beautiful that lovers could never sleep during it. God created the Day so bright that the lovers would have to get up and go outside only to wait for Night to come again...
Night will be here soon.

Sent from the Black Forest...

Good Enough to Forget...

When you're lucky...when the light shines through the clouds, through the passing airplane's window, the dust, smog, bouncing off the teeth of someone's smile, your dirty shades and into your closed eyes...you'll forget everything in this great and glorious moment...

Ummmmm...what was I saying?

Sent from the Black Forest...

Underneath the Clouds...

Underneath the clouds I stand, my spine grows into the ground and out a blade of grass for a fly to tickle on its way to fresh and steamy animal droppings, fecund with larvae that grows up to beat their kids and drink themselves drunk on nectar collected from hummingbirds that beat their hearts fast enough to live a thousand lifetimes and love ten thousand lovers each in their own favorite sexual position and sounds they make when they come into and all over the knowledge they share, connected forever in a mirror facing another mirror showing exact and not so exact images of what we were and never what we are, because it can't be shown in a picture but in a taste, tasty licks of the honey of being known, known and still wanted, wanted like a hunger, an itch given by a blue and yellow mosquito that takes you and gives a little of itself back, it's disease, it's dirty fingerprint on a window that will be washed off by a homeless person looking for a handout to take the last midnight Night Train bottle from the thank heaven it's 7-eleven store owned by a hard working family from Jakarta whose family were well known elephant trackers in their local region where their great-great-grandfather was born in an elephant cemetery and before he died, made the great long walk to where he was born to mix his bones with other elephants, antelope and tigers and bears licking the marrow from broken scapulas that were bashed against the rocks to remember the sound of making, the sound of creating, the sounds of pelvis to pelvis collision of the fourth kind, of abduction, of stolen moments of bliss from the incessant pounding of monotony that rises up to the sky like a spilled cup of tea, a tea of souls that lives in our skin cups, say skin-cups seven times fast and I'll give you a brown bag to breathe into for 2 minutes, 2 minutes saved from tippy-tapping on your phone instead avoiding the real questions, the real answers to the reason why we need all this noise and deception to stop us from knowing why we are...

Sent from the Black Forest...

Mateus Bottles and Colored Melted Wax...

Being born in 1967 I grew up a child of the 70's. Empty Mateus bottles turned into candle holders with multi-colored candle sticks bought from Spencer's Gifts, incense, blacklight posters of black panthers in trees, macramé plant holders, vinyl records, color t.v.'s, flashy cars with chrome and leather couches as seats, bell-bottom jeans, Herbal Essence Shampoo, Goody combs with the big handles sticking out of your back pocket, 8-track boom boxes, Polaroid Insta-Matics, really straight hair or curlalicious fro's, cassette mix tapes, CB radios, bubblegum baseball trading cards of the Oakland A's Billy Martin's Mustache Gang, Hot Wheels, water rockets, dune buggies, and M-80's to blow up mailboxes of the grumpy old men telling us to get off their yard...
Did I mention phones or computers? Nope. A phone was a quick call to meet up somewhere and a computer was something the government had.
This will not be some "When I was a kid we walked in the snow 40 miles to school and we were THANKFUL we could!" kinda crap. We are in a new age. A new revolution. The digital age is here. Like when the industrial age showed up, many jobs were lost because they were replaced by machines. We had to make up new jobs, new ways of doing things, new ways of life. It's that time again. A refresh button on the world.
My greatest hope is that we can change from being a wasteful society to a useful one. Reuse not refuse. Creation not destruction. Upgrade not throwaway. Connection not separation. Understanding not ignorance.
Time will tell. Eventually another revolution will come and wipe away what is now into a yellowed memory. Until then I'm gonna grab a pillow, lay on my wooden floor and put on my "Hot Buttered Soul" album by Issac Hayes and listen to him talk for 8 minutes before he even sings "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"...

Leaving Bread Crumbs...

I'm leaving bread crumbs.

When you leave bread crumbs, you want to be found. Though, halfhearted, because the animals are gonna find those crumbs and eat them...maybe even eat you. There's a good chance you'll never be found. Not good prospects...but it's how I like it.

I'm still wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday. A vintage brown Italian Hounds tooth wool jacket...a sky blue button-snap shirt...a brown tie with golf floral design and little knights on horses jousting...flared blue jeans...brown leather Italian shoes with square tips...a little greasier...face courser with a shadow growing...the shadow will be a small shrub in a few days. I thought that was cool when I was in seventh grade. Now...hmmmm...I don't know. I've had facial since I was 13. I like it because I stick out, but it also covers me up.

Just like this bread crumb thing called the internet. It must be some crazy character flaw I have. Seen but not known. I try to be as honest as I can writing this verbal defecation. It opens me up, and I know I need to do it. To be open. But open is scary too. It's amazing how fast people draw sides, make decisions on other people. Friend or foe. I automatically have new friends and enemies simply by being seen...to be found.

Am I left wing? Right wing? A meat eater? Do I have a sailors mouth? Is Jesus my savior? Has my cock passed the quota of allowed cunts in a life time? Am I an acoustic artist? Too much distortion? Not enough? Is my wit too...umm? Or do I even have a wit? Do I know how to put together clothes in an interesting and creative way?

All these questions have answers...and these answers will make friends and enemies.

Why do I want to be found? Why the hell do I want to be known? Hence the bread crumbs. Honestly... I admit I do want those things, but I am content if I never get them. I like being lost in my forest, but I don't mind a few visitors from time to time.


Sent from the Black Forest...

Hey Now...

A few moments of introspection. Introspection itself is tethered to our outlook.


How we feel is how we see.


For me, I have just about finished a new song for my next album. It's called "Hey Now", a nice sappy love song that I proudly say Neil Diamond might have wrote. I love Neil! My mom brought me up on all those singer-songwriters from the 60's and 70's. Neil Diamond, Carol King, Jimmy Webb, CSN, Neil Young, Nick Drake, The Carpenters and Burt Bacherach...


I need to add a couple tracks of trumpet on it, which I hope to complete next week. I always drive in my car and tool around the neighborhood listening to the mixes, production, and if my vocals suck. Most times I think my vocals suck, but if it's in tune and sounds honest then I'm done with it. I am no judge on my voice. I'm too prejudiced against it. It sounds like me...and I'm not my musical heroes. *laughing*


Knowing this, I am still happy the way the song came out. Only two chords dancing between themselves, building, always building. It's funny how a song grows up. You hope for the best, but in the end, they just do what they do. I'm proud of this one. A happy song-parent. A doting ditty-dad I am...


Back to my point...how we feel is how we see...or perceive rather. I feel great! So...the world looks beautiful! It's a sweltering day here in Southern California Inland. Do I care? Hell no! Not today! The breeze, the sky, the rustling date palms, even the angry busy-bee-automobiles buzzing and whirring 'round are beautiful. Now I know I'm under a spell! A spell of hope and beauty because I created something today. Whatever it becomes or not becomes isn't important, but that it was made. It's what I do, my nature. Succumbing to my nature is like falling into the arms of God, the Great Om, the perpetual spin into oblivion.


Happy am I. For today, for now...and I didn't even touch my absinthe yet.


Sent from the Black Forest...

The Analog...

We are analog beings. We do not make perfect copies of ourselves. Our memories bleed like a watercolor canvas. Never truly static. A little water will change everything. Our nature is true. Our chemistry sets are somewhat predictable though volatile.
My age is showing. When I see film emulsion, magnetic tape, watercolors, oil paints, charcoal drawings, imperfectly drawn circles... I see us. Skipping down the sidewalk with decay. The slow fade to black. No color. No color at all.
Why are we so scared? Why do we hold a death grip fighting change? Do we really think that at this very moment we are at the height of our capabilities? That this is it? Our possibilities are just diminishing returns from now on? Is this why digital technology is so appealing? The perfect copy. The perfect memory. Static and immortal for all time?
We are immortal. It's just that we are just a part of it. The notes of our echo are still ringing, just not perfectly from our initial bursts. They may barely resemble us as we think of ourselves now. Just as we barely resemble ourselves from when we were children. We've grown up. We've changed. Life has stained and run us through.
A painting is no less powerful whether it be new or old. It is what it is. However faded it becomes, the residue and essence remains true... as we.

524 Words About Truth...

"Michelle loves Willie"
"Our little Sarah"
"Daughters of the American Revolution"
"Stryper loves Jesus" and I love a girl
Against my better judgment
'Cause I feel like a squirrel...


This song rings in my mind. "Bug" by Vic Chesnutt. I have no idea why these particular lyrics at this moment have hit my synapses, but they have. When I think of Vic I smile. Not an entirely happy smile. A complicated smile as the man he was. Still...a smile. The world was bettered when he was here.

It's funny. Sitting here in front of the keyboard looking at the blinking cursor I have no idea what I'm gonna tip and tap about. Just exhaling. Letting go some of what the world put into me.

I met Vic once a long, long time ago in the early nineties. My old band Blacksmith Union opened for him at a now defunct coffee/record shop Disc Cafe in La Jolla, California. I loved that shop. I was an exciting time. Live music was strong and pulsing. The salad days of the old ways of music and people.

I was pissed at Vic.

Never having met him, he was late for the show. The place was packed. People literally out in the streets looking in, they were not going to be denied a show. Finally, he pulls up. Drunk. Drunk from going to Tijuana, Mexico. "Fucker" I thought... I was young. The Now me, would smile and laugh. The Then me...well...he was a lot more uptight. *laughing*

We did the show and Vic came on. In his wheel chair, still drunk and he started rattling his beat up classical acoustic guitar. His voice warbled up in the air like a far off stammer. Stronger and stronger it rose and the words spoke truth. Honey-filled truth. A Southern truth that I understood. A truth so unvarnished and naked it seemed to cut you as it licked you.

I stood silent and took it.

Afterwards, I came up to him and told him what a wonderful set it was. His eyes shown a real gratitude and humbleness that few show. "Why thank yo...." Then a fan interjected for an autograph and I let him be.
I drove home listening his new release at the time "West of Rome". He struck a chord with me that still is vibrating within me. It was that truth. That damned truth.

Whatever a man or woman does or doesn't do in their lives...it is the truths that they reveal is what matters. When I say truth, I do not care about lies. Most of our lives are lies. Our perceptions, the facade we show to the world, even ourselves. When we can summon the truth about ourselves and freely show it to the world. Those are the glimmers of essence of our true selves. It is then that we have achieved something. I'd like to think of heaven like that. Not a clouded and winged heaven glistening with gold, but a swirling glow of glistening truth.

I think Vic shown us a lot of truth. I hope I can. I hope I can let myself.

Masturbation and Blogging...

Hello everyone...and when I say everyone I mean you! The three people that read my blogs and the spammers who sell sunglasses and shoes.

First I want to apologize. I'm sorry I've been gone so long. It's just that I've equated blogging to masterbation. I'm mean, I'm all for taking care of business. Everyone has needs. I certainly have mine. A good wank/rub can relieve a lot of stress and tension. Writing does the same for me. This.

I suppose that's why I started blogging...and why I've decided to continue to do so. That's right...I'm fine with you watching. I don't know if you'll enjoy it, perhaps it's the act of being a voyeur...the pleasure is in the peeking...not exactly in the content.

Anyway...I'll be jerking off more frequently now...so if you want to watch you can. It's okay. You can even help. Lower. Faster...

Is this a dream? Or am I always dreaming and I'm actually awake for these few moments? Hmmmm...well...dream or not...can you pass me a Kleenex tissue? Thanks.

I'm finished...


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My Etch-a-Sketch History and Lite-Brite Future...

I wanna shake it. I want to shake it upside down until there is only silver showing. My Etch-a-Sketch History. I've made some great pictures, awful ones, and a boat load of mediocre ones. They're all on there. Some you can see, some you can't unless you can see through all the scribbles trying to cover them up. When I write, for example. When I write line that just miserably sucks, I scribble it out so no one can intelligibly read it. Sure, some forensic specialist could...those damn bastards...there is no wiping away. All evidence and effects are left behind. The ripple has been made. The scratch has been scratched, but I like to believe in my fantasy world.

My Lite-Brite Future glows warmly underneath my blanket-tunnel-fort. Full of hope, these are the best little lit up plastic pegs can offer. Not too technical. Just broad happy strokes of shiny goodness of my illuminated memory.

Wait...I'm just a crazy bitch. A cunt. A dick. An asshole. Wait...just crazy.

I want my fucking Etch-a-Sketch History and Lite-Brite Future! The internet can kiss it's history keeping ass! The corporate-power-banking-utilities-company are not gonna threaten me to pull my Lite-Brite plug!

Everyone repeat after me: "I want my Etch-a-Sketch History and Lite-Brite Future!"

Delusions once swallowed are real. At least 17% real...and that's all I need.

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Limits, Love and the Bends...

I'm in the midst of "Road Crash"...the diver's sickness of touring road musicians. Like the bends, coming up too fast from deep water, one can get sick or even die, road crash is similar, stopping too fast from a long tour, one can get sick too...a mental sickness. Depression. Noting that the mind and body affects each other, the body can follow suit with a delayed reaction as well.

In my funkiness, my mind wanders freely tripping on almost everything it sees, hears, and feels. The term "Limits" come to mind immediately. Whisked in time back to college, I think of my Calculus class. I was scared of this mysterious math until I started it, and then basked in the glorious light of it's simplicity of design and power of it's use. Damn...Newton... Anyway, limits. Limits can always be expressed, even the so called limitless ones. With us on Earth, we are bound by them. For me, limits are a freedom. With limitless possibilities I stand frozen in the choices, creativity spins its wheels grabbing on to nothing. But with limits, I can find a starting point, I must be creative to try to break my bounded glory. This is the sweet marrow of life for me!

While the idea that we are limitless is bandied around...I find this preposterous, even hurtful to us, because in a way, it cages us in. For example, Love. "We have the unlimited capacity to love." Bullshit. Yea...you can loosely say "I love all things.", "I love all people.", "I love all life."....yea....kinda. I don't know what kind of love you're talking about, because for me...I want to feel the love in every fiber of my being. Not this...vague fluffy misty notion of smiling at everyone and wishing them well. That might be more like being benevolent. Good will. I'm for these things mind you, let us just use the appropriate words here.

But love? Don't tell you love me because I just happen to be standing in front of you.

Love needs a commitment of emotional expense. There I've said it. Expense. It costs to love. Not money obviously, but feelings, emotions, mental and physical energy. Being in this world, in this body, limits are what we must deal with. Those that have happy lives have come to terms with this. Accepting our limitations is the first step. The second is pushing our limitations, expanding them to more we can imagine.

I think we need to expand love. The small, stingy idea that one or few people should be loved in a person's lifetime. Granted, it keeps things simple. But really? Deny love? Hell no! We need more love in the world not less...and no...I'm not talking about sex. I love a good fuck as much as anyone, but sex is an entirely different matter. At times, love and sex do hold hands with each other, it is sex that messes up people. Religion and societal mores have tried to bury the beast since we first got a hard on, it has never worked,  millions have died or been persecuted for it. Being homosexual, sexual deviant, or non-monogamous have kept the world spinning in fear, hate, and thrilled...like driving slowly by a car fire on the side of the road. "Is there blood?! I hope so! I mean...I hope they're okay...."

For a moment...just a moment, I'd like to take sex out of the picture. I know it's hard...ummm.... never mind...oh the double entendres. Love for love's sake. We can't invest the emotional expense of truly loving everything, but we can love a lot more than we do. We should not be scared of this. Many have a problem with this idea because sex will rear its juicy head and wham! We must stop it! We must ruin a person's reputation! It will ruin marriage! Our blessed union between two heterosexual people! These people will not only fight for what they believe, but they kill for it too. Because any shaken belief in a religion is a shaken belief of their immortality, mortality, and illusion of control.

This is not a 60's free love idea of all people fucking in the grass. I'm talking about letting yourself love more. It's okay. We can do it. We have it in us. We're limited, but not that limited. Invest a little more in the people around you and that you meet. You'll be surprised at yourself. Be warned...it can add more complications, it will cost you...but it can be a great return on what you've given. It can bring us closer to the real goal of true limitless love, that while we can't obtain here, maybe...just maybe we can possibly attain later after this world lets us go.

Super Heroes and the Straight Up Sideways Everyman...

Super heroes. Many movies and books are devoted to these characters. I like the genre. A glimpse into what we wish we could be, to dream of doing. Pure escapism and a middle finger to the nature of physics that binds us to the ground, no X-ray vision, laser beams and fire balls emanating from our eye balls or fingertips.

Thus is my point. Super heroes are not to be looked up to. In fact they are weak. We are the ones to be awed. Sure they can save the world, but can they endure it without their superpowers? Is it to be admired that Superman can fly up to Mount Everest in a single bound, or a simple man risking his very life to do it? Let us get away even from fantastic human feats. What about slugging it out in a menial job, raising a family, trying to survive, avoiding being eaten by the corporations and banks that want to enslave us? We are the real heroes.

While our super hero fetish is fun and puts a Kung Fu grip on boredom, we need to remember that what people do everyday is worth a movie. The gargantuan strength of out lasting the mundane, the levitation powers of rising above the muck and dredge of being limited, the Earth moving Will to endure a hard life and come out smiling.

These are the real heroes. Us.

One more thing. I'm not gonna put your face on my underwear or anything...just so we get that straight.

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The Saga of Asphalt, Green Grass and the Poisoned Mind Part 4...

We performed at gig somewhere near Champagne, Illinois. I say somewhere because I don't know. I'm not trying to be coolly vague, just simply haven't a clue. When we arrived to our location, it was a winery. One would be quick to guess what the evening would be like and you would be most likely wrong.

First, the proprietors set us up with a campfire, with brats, picnic foods, marshmallows, chocolate bars, graham crackers... Wow. I was 12 years old again...which means I aged 4 years, because normally I feel like I'm 8 years old when I'm on tour.

Cooking our food with metal skewers over the fire...I easily get hypnotized staring into the fire. A fire kicks T.V.'s ass. Fire was the first television and in my opinion still is one of the most powerful visuals on Earth. Throw in the ocean, the sun, the moon, trees blowing in wind, a smile, those twinkly eyes we rarely show, birds flying...fuck television. Fuck the internet. We're missing it. We're missing everything.

I'm typing all this on my phone sadly...why am I doing this? Yea...I had a lot more to ramble about, but right now...at this moment...I need to be here. Listening to the frogs and the fire tell me their secrets and sing me songs of love, death, and sex.

Yea...gotta go.

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Peat Gets Choked Out From Singing Morrisey...

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The Saga of Asphalt, Green Grass and the Poisoned Mind Part 3...

The dreaded empty show. No one's showed up. Five to ten people including the workers at the club. The most important gig you can play. This is the testing point. What you really bring to the show, when nothing is given back. If you can kill this show, ALL shows will be killed. This is the goal. Why drive ten hours to be mediocre? Why sacrifice income, relationships, and sanity to just show up and get by? Hell no. Damn no. Fuck no. Not me.

I had a talk with an artist last night after a gig in Kansas City at Davy's Uptown. She asked me, what do I get from my art. Get? Wrong and dangerous question. Get? There is no "get". It's about GIVE. You give and that's it. Give the truth. The truth of the moment. Anyone using "get" as the impetus for doing art is in for a world of unhappiness with super-special-mind-fuck-sauce.

We give until we die, and even then...even then we keep on giving. Art is to remind us that we are forever connected and bound to each other. The idea that "we are alone" is a sour-faced lie. We are never alone because we are permanently connected in the fabric of life, stars, gingham table cloth, dust, universe, etc. Good art brings us together.

Oh yea...back to my point...the empty nightmare show. Give what you've got and leave nothing left inside. You will be refilled and renewed to give the next day, and if you're not, tough shit and give it all you can anyway. It's what we do.

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The Saga of Asphalt, Green Grass and the Poisoned Mind Part 2...

It's a rain day. Heading across Kansas. It's quiet time in the van. Everyone catching up on emails, texts, sleep or quietly typing out tweets and blogs. The homosexual double entendre innuendos have settled down....for now. Yes...we get in touch with our feminine side in the van. I mean...no one's pitching or catching...but we'll talk about it a lot. Pushing our boundaries and laughing every moment of the way. But like I said, it's quiet time. Our six year old kids inside us have taken a nap. No potty humor or farts are wielded in expert fashion. We're all grown up. Driving a fully loaded van through a down pour is serious business.

Out the window in Kansas there seems to be a preoccupation of Fireworks and Porn shops. Perhaps this is where Perry Ferrel named his band Porno for Pyros? Hmmmm...either way porn and fireworks is not what comes to mind when one drives through Kansas on Interstate 70. In fact, nothing comes to mind. Desolate, void of distraction and visual hyperbole. A Zen master's wet dream. When there is nothing, everything appears. That's how my brain works anyway. It's how I've always been. Give me nothing and I'll get everything. Creation out of nothingness. A gift. One everyone is given, but if rarely used it can become forgotten that in our little world, we can become a God. There I said it. A God. Mmmmm...panties in twist. So many scared fragile folks out there willing to kill me to save me.

Oooh look....a break in the clouds...I did wish it so...was it me? Nah...but it does mean a small respite from the storm and a few new texts have been sent my way...it has begun again. Hello blue...I've missed you.



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The Saga of Asphalt, Green Grass, and the Poisoned Mind Part 1...

The road. I'm on it. Few can take it for long. The romantic notions of being in a car/van for weeks/months is thought dreamily to many, and to 99.9% the reality is much harsher, disorienting, confusing, even nightmarish. The idea of literally being in a different city everyday with no end in sight is not natural for people. Not knowing what day, time, or place you are when you wake up unnerves the strongest of us. To be floaty. No stability and structure. Days and events blur into what seems like a dream from a long time ago but it was only yesterday.

To the other .1% of the population... it is Heaven. This is me. I am in my "happy place". I was built for this. Ever since I was a small child being in a car driven around by my mom to all the National Parks, my family moving 13 times by the time I was 11 years old due to the Army and then job transfers my father had to say yes to. When we got in our station wagon, it was ADVENTURE! Sights of the country rolling by my window, cars filled with people and their complicated lives bustling to a far off land. When you're on the road, your life isn't complicated anymore. It comes down to this... Where are we going? What do we have to do to get there? And finally the best part... being completely open to whatever the world lays at your feet, or what slaps you in the face. Everything. Everyday awaits a chance to meet new people, new land, new hope, and deeper knowledge about yourself. It is this last attribute the scares the living hell out everyone. Our perception/outlook/philosophy is tested to the breaking point. Life at full speed! Damn I get watery-eyed just thinking about it. Chills. Child-like excitement. With the preeminent thought of... what's next _____? (fill in the blank) The word could be World, Universe, God, Fate, Will, the Great OM... whatever you lay yourself open wide to. To submit to. In submission, freedom is found. This is a strong submission, meaning... standing tall, fearless of the fall, full commitment and full knowing. There is no death-spiral, but a life flight!

Oh World/Universe/God/Fate/Will/the Great OM! I give myself the thee!
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Crayola Crayons and Kleenex...

Olfactory memory. The strongest of all time warps. One whiff and I transport to another time and place. I have learned to know certain sensory triggers that affect me deeply…and I use it.

When my creative flow has stopped to halt that no industrial strength mental Immodium can cure, I enlist. I entreat the odor d’ inspiriti…I bring out the Crayola crayons and Kleenex tissues.

These items work for me. Probably not you. Yours might be Play Dough and Tang Orange Drink. When I smell those crayons I like of all those coloring books I filled up in my childhood. The of magic and fairy tales. So deeply are they in me, I stir still…forever wandering in awe of the Black Forest of my mind.

The Kleenex tissues smell exactly like my first guitar case made of pressed wood, glue and plastic fake fur. Yum!!! My excitement for my new found expression of electricity coupled with wood, steel and blood called a Gibson Flying V…I shiver just remembering. The power and depth of those first mangled chords of truth could lay waste all of my troubled and abused youth. Anything was possible. Escape was my desperate desire, and it was showered upon me in shards of distortion, flange, and delays.

That smell of my guitar case floods my nervous system into overdrive. I am transported to a place of ultimate freedom and safety. For some wonderful strange reason, Brand new Kleenex boxes smell exactly the same to me. And because of this I can submerge at will into the deep aqueous liquid of pure innocent joy. I fucking love you Kleenex and Crayola. I wanna bottle all of my magic scents and keep them in a tackle box for emergency emotional olfactory use.

I’ll call it my “Moonbeam Dream Box”…

Love and Donny Osmond...

I'm not into holidays. Especially holidays created by card companies, but knowing a certain one is coming up soon I thought of this...


When I was five I had my first girlfriend. Her name was Rachel. My parents both worked and my neighbor babysat me with her daughter after school until my mom picked me up after she got home. As kids do, we played and watched Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, Josie and the Pussycats, and Star Trek everyday. Then one special day Rachel came up to me and said "Hey big boy, why don't ya come up and see me sometime!" and proceeded to give me my first kiss. She was an older woman...she was six.


Well that was it! I had a girlfriend and my first hard-on. I had no idea what happened. I knew I liked it, but I was really embarrassed about it. I don't think she even noticed. Thank God, but how could she? What kind of package am I gonna have at five? So anyway...as kids do...and everybody else, we worked out a system. Everyday I played Barbie's with her, I'd be "Ken with the Camaro" for an hour and afterwards, she'd sit on my lap, put her arms around me, say "Hey big boy, why don't ya come up and see me sometime!" and kiss me. We did this for months.


Then one day, as before, we played Barbie's and after the hour was up I was ready for my kiss. She looked at me rather coldly and said "I don't love you anymore. I'm in love with Donny Osmond." I was heart broken. What did I do wrong? I played Barbie's with her. I didn't use any tongue. She never felt my hard-on. What did I do?!


The very next day she had Donny Osmond posters up all over the place. I didn't play with her again. I watched the television and wondered why Captain Kirk got all the hot green women.


Years pass. Many years. Almost 19. I'm in a band, we were doing pretty well and we were approached by a management company, that at the time also managed Donny Osmond. He was on his comeback tour in the 90's. While they were negotiating signing us, I was asked if I could help roadie Donny's Summer Festival/Fair tour and stage manage. I was pretty industrious and loved to work. Travel and get paid well doing it? Damn straight I'll take the gig!


After a few weeks on the job, I got to know Donny a little. Enough to joke around at least. One night there were some crazy fans that I was supposed to dissuade from cornering Donny after a show. In a flash I thought of Rachel and how she dumped me for a Donny poster and in my mind I remembered Ricardo Montalban's line in Start Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, "revenge is a dish best served cold", I let all the crazed fans right on in. Donny was pissed. Later in the rental car going back to the hotel he asked what the heck was with me letting those people in? I smiled and said "Revenge!". At first he just quizzically looked blank, then started laughing. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it! It wasn't my fault! I was a kid!" He knew right where I was going. I told him about Rachel and we had a good laugh. I got my chance to confront the guy who stole my first love away. Well...not really love...but it counts.

Naked Phone Rules...

In bed naked? Just got out of the shower? Or just walking around the house in yer skin suit?


Here are the rules for talking naked on the phone:


1. If mom calls, let the answering machine pick it up. The voice of your mother and your bits jangling in the breeze just shouldn't happen.


2. If a business call comes through, take it. Use that sexual power to your advantage. "Yea...I'm talking to you! Take that!" *strut...strut...strut*


3. If it's a friend who calls...hmmm...hell I don't know. You'll know what to do. Some friends I have no problem defecating and urinating while I'm talking to them. What are friends for?


4. If a significant other? You don't need a rule for that. Every sexual thought, innuendo, and er...umm...yea...has been done under the sun a billion times over. One hopes for frequent occurrences like this to rear your Sexus, Nexus, and Plexus head up to the sky.


5. If a telemarketer calls, just walk over to the toilet and start letting loose right away. If you can't, simulate it. They won't be on the phone for long. I laughed for days after I did this. *misty-eyed-smile* *wipe* *blink*


6. If an alien calls, tell them they aren't a very good alien if they need to use a phone and hang up. Unless they're kinda sexy sounding with lots of heavy breathing, wispy noises and such. Then you can start by asking them what they're wearing? Or...from which mouth are they speaking from?


7. If.... (PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN RULES HERE)






By the way...I typed all of this typed on my computer...naked.

I Have A Gnome In My Piano...

I have a gnome in my piano. Yea...that's right...a gnome.


I had a dream a few years back. In it, I'm standing at my front door and this gnome through my white picket gate. He looks just like a gnome should, long white beard, pointy hat, rosy cheeks, smiling, and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. A good mischievous, not a bad one. He had all his stuff with him. It wasn't a lot. Just a small trunk, a bag, and jug of something seeming intoxicating in nature. He didn't say a word, he didn't have to. He wanted to move in. I know that look.


I wasn't scared. Well...I was for a second, then I just let it go. I'm always like that. When something scares me, I let it fill me up, then I let it all out like a breath. I deal with everything that way. The universe is akin to breathing. Obviously in living, it is literal, but it also helps as a reminder to dealing with things that have an ether about them. A floating. Intangible.


I treat these intangibles like breath. Fear. Happiness. Worry. Excitement. Etc.


So...back to the gnome. I looked at him welcoming and said, "Hello! Come on in! Make yourself at home." And he did just that. He came in, walked right up to my small upright piano. Opened a secret door on the right side of the Wurlitzer upright, put his stuff inside, waved and walked in. The door closed behind him and I never saw him again. Talk about a great guest! Not a peep. No fiery dragons or ice queens ever showed up.  Damn. That would have been a high psilocybin adventure! Terence McKenna would be proud.


I know. I had a dream. It was just that, a dream. Dreams aren't real. Well...I think they are. I've rambled about this before, so I won't re-ramble it. Just saying...Anything that affects you is real. The ripple in the pond was made by something. Maybe it's not substantial, but it's something. Enough to change me anyway. Perception.


I wonder about my little gnome from time to time. What was his name? Could I pronounce it? What is he up to? Is he on the intergnome chatting to his gnomebook friends? Nogging about his last noog? Watching a little German Gnome Porn? Maybe he's not into all that and does it the old-fashioned way with pixie dust. 

A Cup O' Tom Jones...

It's friggin' freezing in this old house! 49 degrees Fahrenheit! That's 9.4 Celsius for the rest of the world. So...first thing this morning...blazing hot tea...Welsh Tea...which my Northern U.K. friend constantly reminds me doesn't exist. Well it does dammit! I can send pictures! Since it's called Welsh tea and many awesome Welshman have made their way in the world, I have christened it "A Cup O' Tom Jones". Yea...yea...yea...I know the reference. I'm not homophobic. I am so far away from that end of the spectrum I'm not at the least bit worried of myself crossing over to the other side and becoming a double agent.


Besides...Tom Jones kicks ass! My first song of memory is CCR's "Proud Mary". They're my favorite band...they put me in my happy place. The second song of memory was John Denver's "Sunshine On My Shoulders", the third was "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head" by B.J. Thomas...but the fourth was "What's New Pussycat?" by Tom Jones. Hmmmm...listing those songs like that...it's kinda scary. "Get Back" from the Beatles "Let It Be" album was next...


I feel like I'm undressing in front of everyone. Ummmm...I'm gonna stop. Oh...but that's what I do. I undress in front of people...er...so to speak. Everyone love's an accident...a car on flames...flashing lights...blood...sugar, salt and fat.


Where was I? Oh yea...Tom Jones! He kicks ass! Some people think he's cheesy, but they're missing the point. They're missing the fun! He's fun like a barrel full of vaginas...ummm...that are still living...they aren't pickled or anything. *laughing* Too much caffeine? TOO MUCH CAFFEIND?!!! Could be! It's not me, it's the Cup O' Tom Jones!


Damn...I gotta jet. I gotta fly. Gonna meet Poltzy for...coffee! Damn your eyes! Too Late.

Hurricanes and ABBA...

Yes...I know...it's not hurricane season. I live in San Diego. Weather is a rarity here other than 80 degrees and sunny, but it's Winter here....and it's pretty rainy-stormy-windy-floody. This takes me back to Pensacola, Florida and being 8 years old. A hurricane suddenly changed direction and took our Navy Blue Angles town by surprise. Not that we should have been surprised. Unable to evacuate, we boarded up our windows. Electricity gone. Just candles, a multi-band radio for weather info, a portable 8-track player, and a deck of cards.


The wind was howling like a freight train, it sounded like death screaming to me, "Get your ass over here, die already, I'm busy and have places to go!" Well, I wasn't gonna oblige. In fact I was ignoring Him. Yes, it's a Him. For me, Death is a Him and Life is Her. Anyway...I was busy. Busy playing cards, playing "War". You know the card game right? Well if you don't, I'm not gonna explain it. *smile*


So I'm playing War, winning, and listening to ABBA's Greatest Hits, "S.O.S." is blasting...so right for this moment...perfect. Then, "Knowing Me, Knowing You". Then, "Fernando" and "Dancing Queen"...


S.O.S. - "So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me. SOS! The love you gave me, nothing else can save me. SOS! When you're gone (when you're gone). How can I even try to go on. When you're gone (when you're gone). Though I try how can I carry on..."


Fucking ABBA. I'm wondering if our house will get swept up, if this will be our last day. Forever entangled in my mind and heart. Near death and ABBA. Harsh weather and ABBA. 


ABBA! ABBA! ABBA!


"You seem so far away though you are standing near. You made me feel alive, but something died I fear. I really tried to make it out. I wish I understood. What happened to our love, it used to be so good." 



So good...so wrong. Twist me, tangle me. Take me away. Save me from Death my Holy Trinity of Swedish Lovelies!!!


I am safe when they're with me. Death cannot fucking touch me...

I Killed A Hummingbird...

I killed a humming bird. I was 13 years old. I had my bee-bee hand gun and shooting oranges off of trees like "Angel Eyes" Clint Eastwood...well...kinda like it. No Spaghetti Western sound effects or Confederate gold to be gotten. Then it came, a ruby throated hummingbird right in front of my orange tree. I slowly raised my gun, aimed with my left eye, squeezed the trigger...and POW! Or rather "pip".


This was the slow-motion portion of the shot. I hit the hummingbird square in the throat. It's neck flopped down sideways and fell dead immediately.


This image runs through my mind to this day. I have never forgotten one of the worst feelings of my life. I say I'm sorry to that little bird every time I think about this. I ask for forgiveness. I was a stupid, stupid child. Killing a life needlessly, without purpose except to see if I could do it.


I am not a natural born killer. Yet, I have taken part in many deaths for my hunger. Someone else doing the dirty work. Not I. I try to think about the animal before I eat it. I respectfully acknowledge it's life for my life.


I am not a vegetarian. I know that something must die for me to live. That is the price of life. You can place more value on an animal's life than a plant, but life is life in my book.


The important thing is to remember and to be humbled by the life that was lost to maintain my own...to be grateful. The inexcusable is needless death like my poor hummingbird. I will never ever forget...






Sent from the Black Forest.