I had no idea the song was called “Summer ’68.” I found it though, and I added it. My album copy of Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” is a memory. I listen to a version I downloaded from Limewire. I hope the version of the song in my widget sufficiently demonstrates the curiously intense mastering of the refrain.

 

Oh, I am in a very bitter mood these last few weeks. I’d like to say the end is in sight. I’d like to say a lot of things…

 

As you may know, I haven’t suffered a physical illness of any kind for a long time now. Last year I sprained my back, which gave me pain for two days before it simply vanished as if it had never happened. I suffered from toothache for one day. But I can well imagine what it may be like to have an illness – a cold, flu, what-have-you – that just clings to a body for weeks and weeks. How monotonous that must be. This mood of mine is like that. As the sun begins to rise on each new day I think it will be gone at last, but no – I am lonesome, irritable, and discontented. This does put a crimp in my otherwise perfect open flow of absurdly exaggerated serenity.

 

Oh – how I despise that word!

 

Be that as it may, The White Lodge remains open to visitors because I don’t believe I’m contagious.

 

That Nick Cave is from the soundtrack to an extremely uneven Wim Wenders movie. Wenders became a celebrity with the European and pseudo-European pop community after “Wings of Desire” was such an accidental success, (though it was followed by a sequel which was absolutely awful, and re-made into a Hollywood version which was so bad it was funny.) But anyway, his movie had a darn good soundtrack. This particular song takes me back to 1992. I went to a Mets game with a boom box in the car playing a tape which included this song – “(I’ll Love You) Till the End of The World” – along with all of “The Good Son” album. There was a compilation of John Cale songs on the other side.

 

I was going to meet up with a group of us from the newspaper where I worked, a group which included the woman who would become the mother of my children. I didn’t realize I had no intention of returning home that day, but apparently I had already made up my mind on some level to never return home. I actually did return after the events of that ball game day. I threw some things into a black plastic garbage bag, told my wife where she could find my stash of pornography and empty vodka bottles, and left – this time for good.

 

That was quite a year, 1992. It was in April that I walked out. By September I was in jail. Why it took me so long I have no idea.

 

Come to think of it, I saw “Wings of Desire” that year.

 

I’m enjoying King Django now – “Ska Mitzvah.” It reminds me of the Hassidic bands in Far Rockaway. Ha! Kids… just wanna twist.

 

I remember the typesetters adding the line “www.______” to every ad in the newspaper. Silly trend – something to do with computers. Many years later it was the Internet which would provide me once again with the ability to hear all the music I left behind. I accidentally erased the John Cale side of the tape one day while my boys’ Mom and I were driving somewhere. Recorded over it was the sound of our argument, mainly me whining. Women brought out the whine in me. The whine in me brought on the wine for me. Cheese was optional.

 

Cheese was in the wind…

 

Well, having absolutely no reason to be suffering from ill temper makes it worse. All I have to do is rock, roll, ‘n remember and it becomes bloody obvious that life in general is awfully darned good today. Good children, nice house, growing business, people on the computer saying I’m wonderful – these are rather positive developments. Having the music back is the best development of all.

 

Today I will clean the house, and the cars, re-pot some geraniums I rescued from the frost, and listen to music. It will be good.  

The old Crown Vic was back and there was driving to be done. Shuffling all our cars in a public parking lot. Some people parked too close. I walked on their cars to scratch their paint jobs. In a mansion belonging to a customer my children were still very young and it was so good to have them. A frog toy disintegrated, and I had to clean it up off the floor, but they were playing with the rich kid, and the Monkey Girl’s children were also there. There was no suspicion, no evil in the world. To hear her talk, surrounded by half people, the culture of fear, that deep disturbance: It bothers me. My world is a better place, though people clench their tiny fists like the cowardly lion and say “I do believe in CNN, I do believe in Praxis; I do believe in pedophiles, I do believe in taxes.”

 

Tailgaters – why do people speed? They have nowhere to go, nothing to do. Their little lives are meaningless, and they are too stupid to realize this. Life is a train on the other track, the one running parallel to theirs. The train rattles the windows when it passes and the screaming noise it makes drives them insane who listen. They believe that they are on that train, but they are not; they are ghosts whose skin is torn by soft blades of real grass, who are torn apart by real water. The windows are yellow-stained and everything good is covered up in plastic.

 

Greg was the youngest in a High School dynasty. He had the best parties, except that at the end he forced us to all join hands and sing “Piano Man.” A straight-shooter was he. One night he followed us closely home, his bright headlights lighting up the inside of my friend’s Apollo. When we finally arrived he explained that we had neglected to turn our headlights on, and he slapped the driver for smoking grass and being so absent-minded. One night, at one of Greg’s parties, a fat girl attached the intact label from her bottle of beer on my knee. I knew on some level that meant she liked me. I wasn’t then to know that was as good as it was going to get.

 

The sidewalk puckered like mud with every step. We were more real than the world of things. Entropy is as entropy does, and such a sentiment replaces religion for the dead souls who think they are living. The city air was cold and winter crisp. Metal machine music floated on the Midtown gales. They call that wind The Hawk who live outdoors exposed to its loving breath.

 

If all good things come from Heaven, where do you come from? And, if you’re here who’s watching Hell? We live our life as if it’s real – the one we seem to share. It gives us something to talk about. Some of us get carried away believing in it. That we die and our bodies rot is the whole doctrine of such a belief. What else can it be? There are details, distractions to be examined, molecules to be dissected. Like Adam we give names to things, and naming them means we can change them, control them, destroy them. But we can’t create anything except words and more words. We assemble, dissemble, reassemble. That’s materialism, if you please. It isn’t really an ‘ism’ at all, being meaningless. It’s simply being afraid to think further, or to think at all.

 

We believe that we are riding the Black Horse in this age, but really we are riding on the Pale Horse who devote ourselves to the examination of material things. It is the same as the worship of money or sex. The intellect is dead if it is contained within the brain within the head, because Life + Time = Death and time is relative.

 

Those are my thoughts this morning – or a flake from them. I do rather like the Leonard Cohen lyric: “And you treated my woman to a flake from your life/ And when she got back she was nobody’s wife.”

 

Happy day to you.   

Anyone who has followed my ill-mannered scribblings for any time knows I’m alcoholic. The Squabbler isn’t. He doesn’t have a mouth. I think a person needs a mouth to be an alcoholic. It happens to humans. It doesn’t happen to… whatever he is. I’m only mentioning it today because of the goose-stepping twelve-stepping teetotalitarianists I encounter in the course of my day. I need to learn not to tell folks like that about my accidental vitamin overdoses. They say things like, “Well it affects us differently than other people.” The ‘us’ in this case is other alcoholics. Rubbish.

 

Why, I know a fellow who changed his all-important ‘sobriety date’ because he had trouble with prescription pain medication. What the hell that has to do with alcoholism is beyond me. No – I tell a lie there. It isn’t beyond me; it’s beneath me. It has absolutely positively nothing to do with his alcoholism. Sure, he can use twelve step methodology to help him sort out his addiction problem. A person can use twelve step to stop picking his nose if he wants to. So what? That kind of problem has no place at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

Let me back up a bit.

 

The White Tornado downs two tiny vials of energy boosting vitamin supplement every morning and then chases it down with coffee. All 98 pounds of her – she’s like a hummingbird with the sugar an’ all. I laugh at her – gently, of course. And she makes some remark about how I don’t like to watch her ‘doing drugs’ for the benefit of whoever happens to be manning the cash register in the grocery store in the morning. Well, this morning I awoke still tired, having not slept too well, and I thought as I’d like to try a wee dram of her morning medicine. It can’t be more potent than a caffeine pill. But it was.

 

Packed a wallop, it did. I’ve since gone back to look at the ingredients. It’s got a little caffeine in it, lots of sugar, the rest a variety of B-12 vitamins just as advertised. For the first half of the day I was irritable, unpleasant, negative, just bloody mean. My left hand cramped up into a twisted fist which I could not unclench for more n’ a minute or three. For the second half of the day I was singing, happy, manic. The difference was I’d finally figured out what was wrong with me – it was that blasted vial of vitamins. Once I had that sorted out in my mind I knew that all would be well, eventually, so my mood improved.

 

But gee.

 

So, the WT suggested my metabolism doesn’t do too well with the B-12. I agree. And I apologized up and down for my behavior, but she said the same sorta thing happens to her husband.

 

Well, I’m not “all Advil.” S’matter of fact I’m “no Advil.” I don’t medicate, as a rule. I don’t feel discomfort during my day. I haven’t been physically ill in many years. The so-called ‘inevitable’ cold is nonexistent for me. I don’t remember what a cold feels like. Or a headache. Toothache I’ve had. I took one Tylenol PM and slept for 14 hours, missing an entire morning of appointments. So – what does all that mean? Well, it means I don’t have much resistance to medication. I use nicotine patches. That’s the exception. I find that if I don’t use nicotine patches I smoke cigarettes. If I try to smoke while wearing a patch I become queasy.

 

Whatever.

 

Towards the end of his life AA co-founder Bill Wilson got into promoting and marketing vitamin supplements. Oh, he was on fire for vitamins. Loved ‘em.

 

Well, he can keep ‘em.

 

Anyhoooo, there’s such a variety of soft drinks containing energy boosting supplements – Monster, and the like – which I now know better than to ever try. And that’s how I know it has nothing to do with alcoholism, and that alcoholism is not a drug addiction and resembles one only superficially: the phrase ‘know better than to ever try’ would have no meaning in the case of alcohol. One never knows better. I don’t care what kind of drug it is – even something as benign as a dietary supplement, or as obviously damaging as heroin – one always knows better, but decides to do it anyway. Some people decide to cut themselves with razor blades. Some people decide to watch the Food Network. Some people jog until their shins end up turning into Christmas crackers. People are daffy. What are ya gonna do?

 

I’m still flying pretty high. It’s unpleasant, but it will pass – someday.

 

Well, I was thinking perhaps I would redecorate the entire house, hang some nice wall paper, do some painting, install new cornice mouldings, replace the roof, finish that time machine Squabbler started building, alphabetize the myphets, call my congressman’s office…

 

Write a post. I’ve just checked that one off the list.

I fell asleep listening to Einstürzende Neubauten. (It’s spelled Einstürzende Neubauten but it’s pronounced throat warbler mangrove.) No, it’s not Wagner. I’m speaking of Bad Seeds guitar player Blixa Bargeld’s band.

 

File under Pop. They call it ‘industrial.’ What the hell is that supposed to mean? Punk, Goth, Industrial, Emo, Acid, Psychedelic… Who cares?

 

That’s a big ‘Who cares?’ right there. I have small ‘Who cares?’ and big ‘Who cares?’ Does anybody really say, “I like Industrial music, but I don’t like… cheese… on toast,” or whatever? Anyhooo, it’s on the depressing side – the music of Einstürzende Neubauten, that is. (That’s the third and last time I’ll copy and paste that name.)

 

I like it though. I like it a lot.

 

No subject today. I’ve got nothing to say. I’ll be amused later by whatever the Google Ads word matching program comes up with. Maybe I’ll get a post out of it. Last week – or, earlier this week – I noticed they have a tendency to take any word in the language and match it with ‘ringtone.’ What in the blubbering petunias is a ‘Pastor Ringtone?’ Does it play “Nearer My God to Thee?” Tell me they have an Einstürzende Neubauten ringtone.

 

Whoops, I did it again.

 

I’m almost to the point now of having too much stuff here – what with all I’ve been pulling out of that house. I can’t bear to see nice old things thrown away. I’m not very materialistic, believe it or not. These worn-out old things are like pets.

 

A friend of mine is dating this girl who has a house down in Florida, and he’s planning to move down there. Oh – she’s really very nice. I thought so when I met her a few years ago. I didn’t know she was available. I may not have been, at the time. I don’t recall when exactly it was. But yesterday I saw my friend drive by and I thought of him and his situation. I mentioned it to my helper who was riding with me – she and I get along rather well, talk about whatever’s on our minds. Suddenly I was on a snit about how Florida has no hills, and I wouldn’t want to live in a place that has no hills.

 

Somehow that turned into a tirade about the new things you can buy at Wal-Mart or Best Buy and how they break within a year or become obsolete because of new technology. Hey – I had recently written of a Nintendo Game Cube game, and that system’s been phased out. Yes, there’s a strong aftermarket developing – used games and parts, that sorta thing. Did I mention loving “Spiderman 2?” I love it because I have the option of not playing the silly game, but just making Spiderman climb buildings in Manhattan and swing around.

 

What that has to do with Florida I have no idea, except that Florida and Long Island are populated by the same people – the people who buy crappy new things that fall apart and live in ranch-style houses with carpet, and watch Oprah, American Idol, whatever’s in the culture. I’ve got a resentment there. I’m not sure if I feel excluded? Why would I feel badly about being excluded from something I despise? Or maybe because I feel excluded from it that’s why I despise it. But no – there really isn’t any value in it. Maybe it’s wanting fellowship, and knowing that people like me are few and far between. I mean, having The Squabbler means I need to be connected to something that doesn’t change. Everything changes except God. No, The Squabbler is a person connected to history, and he is completely above the norm, above the law, above caring.

 

“Down in space it’s always 1982

The joke we always knew…”

 

That’s the David Bowie “Heathen” album. It makes me cry. It’s about getting old. Suddenly the world is being run by little monsters who don’t value anything outside of their own needs, desires – little goose-stepping sound byte spewers whose minds are dominated by fear. Everything good is illegal – everything. Certain thoughts are illegal, certain forms of expression that used to be free. Why? Because they’re terrified.

 

I guess I think this way about people who live in the world and take their delight in dead things, new things, disposable things.

 

Well, inspiration for a post is bound to come along within the next few days. Maybe I’ll post a new poem. I’m not too happy with the new stuff yet. I’m doing a reading on Sunday at a local place, trying it out on an audience. I’ll see what kind of flavor it makes in my mouth, and then I’ll know what words are right, what words are wrong, whether or not they’re in the right order.

 

Happy day to you, My Love.