10/31/2008
pale flight attendant--
brutal weather for flying--
airplane smells like pee
#
six dollar snack box,
Kevin Costner comedy--
below, sleeping land
#
we share small tables,
students in the afternoon--
thank God for coffee
#
Hummingbird's Daughter
has never abandoned me
on Devil's Highway
#
there are miracles:
seventeen small syllables--
room for a lifetime
#
100 plane flights
and all year disappointed--
still no UFOs
#
Mexican-hater
puts immigration sign down--
can't be late for church
#
91 year old
buys my book on border death,
says "I can take it"
#
Republican group
ascertains I'm not illegal--
hugs at the country club
#
until enemies
say my kind should drop and die
love is everywhere
#
revolutionists
keep coming to my readings
to save me from God
#
If I can get home,
Cinderella will warm me
as wind strips the trees.
Adios, Amigos!
Kobayashi Matsuo Urrea
Selected Book Tour Haiku by Kobayashi Urrea
brutal weather for flying--
airplane smells like pee
#
six dollar snack box,
Kevin Costner comedy--
below, sleeping land
#
we share small tables,
students in the afternoon--
thank God for coffee
#
Hummingbird's Daughter
has never abandoned me
on Devil's Highway
#
there are miracles:
seventeen small syllables--
room for a lifetime
#
100 plane flights
and all year disappointed--
still no UFOs
#
Mexican-hater
puts immigration sign down--
can't be late for church
#
91 year old
buys my book on border death,
says "I can take it"
#
Republican group
ascertains I'm not illegal--
hugs at the country club
#
until enemies
say my kind should drop and die
love is everywhere
#
revolutionists
keep coming to my readings
to save me from God
#
If I can get home,
Cinderella will warm me
as wind strips the trees.
Adios, Amigos!
Kobayashi Matsuo Urrea
10/30/2008
Not fortune, not fame--
to silence desperation
I took up the pen
#
expect four hundred--
twenty-five people come in--
outside, early snow
#
hotel room again,
the traveler leaves no trace--
sheets on crumpled bed
#
once upon a time
I wrote it all for Prudence--
fans come: can't reach her
#
famous writers there--
if you put it on your blog
people call you pig
#
Pennsylvania sky--
can't go home till Denver's done--
airplane never comes
#
immigration talk--
expecting angry shouting--
1,000 new friends
#
must not have got laid--
last year brought lover to boast,
this year denounced me
#
miracles abound
strangers come up to hug me
my name in their books
#
flying to Denver--
last week was Indiana--
leaves already red
#
wounded vet lifts pants--
wait-listed grannies inspect--
"At least you can walk."
#
"I hate haiku, man!"
Until I met Issa's ghost,
I hated it, too.
#
I worked the toilets
of public bathrooms scrubbing--
all gratitude now
#
Bill Clinton's coming
after Sarah Palin leaves--
I miss the whole thing
#
copy-editing
in this midnight hotel room--
Letterman and I
#
I can't wake up, I
can't wake up, I can't wake up,
I cannot wake up.
#
Tijuana to here
is a good long walking road--
a hard road, red road.
I'll post more in a few days. Let me sleep first. Thank you, Seattle, Penn State, and the kind Republican audience in Denver. And thanks to my long-suffering UIC students who forgave me for all these journeys. Almost done--just Oregon and Arizona to go...
Kobayashi!
Smoke on the Water
to silence desperation
I took up the pen
#
expect four hundred--
twenty-five people come in--
outside, early snow
#
hotel room again,
the traveler leaves no trace--
sheets on crumpled bed
#
once upon a time
I wrote it all for Prudence--
fans come: can't reach her
#
famous writers there--
if you put it on your blog
people call you pig
#
Pennsylvania sky--
can't go home till Denver's done--
airplane never comes
#
immigration talk--
expecting angry shouting--
1,000 new friends
#
must not have got laid--
last year brought lover to boast,
this year denounced me
#
miracles abound
strangers come up to hug me
my name in their books
#
flying to Denver--
last week was Indiana--
leaves already red
#
wounded vet lifts pants--
wait-listed grannies inspect--
"At least you can walk."
#
"I hate haiku, man!"
Until I met Issa's ghost,
I hated it, too.
#
I worked the toilets
of public bathrooms scrubbing--
all gratitude now
#
Bill Clinton's coming
after Sarah Palin leaves--
I miss the whole thing
#
copy-editing
in this midnight hotel room--
Letterman and I
#
I can't wake up, I
can't wake up, I can't wake up,
I cannot wake up.
#
Tijuana to here
is a good long walking road--
a hard road, red road.
I'll post more in a few days. Let me sleep first. Thank you, Seattle, Penn State, and the kind Republican audience in Denver. And thanks to my long-suffering UIC students who forgave me for all these journeys. Almost done--just Oregon and Arizona to go...
Kobayashi!
10/20/2008
I got this e-mail from someone called "Puff of Smoke." He or she assured me that you all love me, and you all love my work, but that I am doing things beneath me by "name-dropping those more famous" than me and talking about money. As per, I would guess, "Wastelander V." Bummer, dude! I wrote right away and asked the old Who question, "Who are you?" Long time readers of this blog will know there was no answer.
Sometimes you're on the peaks, and sometimes you're in the valleys. Lately, I have been on the wtin peaks of extended and painful oral surgery. I got Puff's message while drooling blood into wads of malodorous cotton batting, so I am grateful for the effort to cheer me up! (My dentist is more famous than I am in the town where I live, so I won't drop his name.) In between the surgeries (is there any worse thing you can hear when you're in the chair and the dentist has your mouth pried all the way open than: "Get me the scalpels"???), I had to do a panel in Chicago with...DOH! I almost dropped their names! They were famous guys! Then flew in the morning to Muncie, Indiana, for a lovely visit. Sadly for me, I had to get on the road at 4:45 a.m. to get back to Chi to teach my class. Then, back to the scalpels and the blood and Puff.
It's funny, because when the e-mail came, I read it to the house. My close personal friends, Johnny Depp and Will Farrell were over, helping me count money. Will was like, "Oh darn it, Puff of Smoke! I'm, like, so pissed right now! I was up to $730,000, and you made me lose count!" Fortunately, my former sweetheart--my prom date when I won Homecoming King--Oprah, was in the other room and didn't hear all the fuss. She hit me on the intercom and was like, "What do I do with these piles of tens and twenties?" I was like: "Toss 'em out! I make SO MUCH MONEY that I don't have time for chump-change!" All of a sudden, I got a call from my screening room. I recently converted seven rooms of my 38 bedroom manse to a home theatre. It was Shakira, down there with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. They were so peeved that Quentin Tarantino was late getting his new flick over. But I didn't mind--I was secretly holding off till my dawg, Pope Benedict, got over here in his hooptie.
Leaving tomorrow for Seattle. From there to Penn State. From there to a town hall meeting in Denver. I hope to do a good job, though I'm tired and achy and, well, guarded. It has been a strange year, I must admit. (Oh...NOOO...I can't stop myself--I MUST NAME-DROP!!! I once met Stephen King! I called him Steve!!!!) (I never met BOB DYLAN, but I saw his picture on his records!!!!!) (I never met COLONEL SANDERS, but I love me some crispy chicken!!!!!!!!!) Oh, hey--check it out. I just made $947.58 writing that.
Trying to get through my semester: that's really my main concern right now. You and the students. I leave you with a great stanza I just sent out to my writer pals:
What do we care
if life is a joke.
We'll give it a big kiss
and give it a poke.
Death wears a big hat
'cause he's a big bloke.
We're only living this instant.
--Elvis Costello
(I don't know him.)
The Wastelander V
Sometimes you're on the peaks, and sometimes you're in the valleys. Lately, I have been on the wtin peaks of extended and painful oral surgery. I got Puff's message while drooling blood into wads of malodorous cotton batting, so I am grateful for the effort to cheer me up! (My dentist is more famous than I am in the town where I live, so I won't drop his name.) In between the surgeries (is there any worse thing you can hear when you're in the chair and the dentist has your mouth pried all the way open than: "Get me the scalpels"???), I had to do a panel in Chicago with...DOH! I almost dropped their names! They were famous guys! Then flew in the morning to Muncie, Indiana, for a lovely visit. Sadly for me, I had to get on the road at 4:45 a.m. to get back to Chi to teach my class. Then, back to the scalpels and the blood and Puff.
It's funny, because when the e-mail came, I read it to the house. My close personal friends, Johnny Depp and Will Farrell were over, helping me count money. Will was like, "Oh darn it, Puff of Smoke! I'm, like, so pissed right now! I was up to $730,000, and you made me lose count!" Fortunately, my former sweetheart--my prom date when I won Homecoming King--Oprah, was in the other room and didn't hear all the fuss. She hit me on the intercom and was like, "What do I do with these piles of tens and twenties?" I was like: "Toss 'em out! I make SO MUCH MONEY that I don't have time for chump-change!" All of a sudden, I got a call from my screening room. I recently converted seven rooms of my 38 bedroom manse to a home theatre. It was Shakira, down there with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. They were so peeved that Quentin Tarantino was late getting his new flick over. But I didn't mind--I was secretly holding off till my dawg, Pope Benedict, got over here in his hooptie.
Leaving tomorrow for Seattle. From there to Penn State. From there to a town hall meeting in Denver. I hope to do a good job, though I'm tired and achy and, well, guarded. It has been a strange year, I must admit. (Oh...NOOO...I can't stop myself--I MUST NAME-DROP!!! I once met Stephen King! I called him Steve!!!!) (I never met BOB DYLAN, but I saw his picture on his records!!!!!) (I never met COLONEL SANDERS, but I love me some crispy chicken!!!!!!!!!) Oh, hey--check it out. I just made $947.58 writing that.
Trying to get through my semester: that's really my main concern right now. You and the students. I leave you with a great stanza I just sent out to my writer pals:
What do we care
if life is a joke.
We'll give it a big kiss
and give it a poke.
Death wears a big hat
'cause he's a big bloke.
We're only living this instant.
--Elvis Costello
(I don't know him.)
10/16/2008
California Dreaming
[The Wastelanders are a form of prose-sketching I invented on the road. You can find all the sections of this sequence in the blog archives from this summer. Others are scattered in the deeper archives from last year and before.]
Last night I dropped my chains
and walked away.
My eyes were almost blind,
and yet I saw
against eternity’s blue slope
a shadow like myself,
pilgrim of blood and gold.
--John Haines
Sunday June 22
All the leaves are brown,
And the sky is gray….
#
Going to beloved Barney’s Beanery
on the tattered tail-end of Route 66,
unholy Santa Monica Blvd.
surrounded by the ghosts of insane David Thomson/Rick Elias 20 yr old
Hollywood living—nights of The Whiskey & The Rainbow---all night prowling
talking to street people, watching Gregg Allman nod off in midnight diner,
talking to hookers on corners about going to London some day,
pulling practical jokes in the street
& being rousted by cops at three a.m., tussling w/ punks
on Sunset strip.
Now, here
to eat brunch w/ our hero, Mike Cendejas—engineer
of my new movie career.
Auspicious e-mail today: Luis Mandoki
is going to Aspen for a week
to do Hummingbird prep work
w/ Antonio Banderas.
I said, “Gee—I was in Aspen a couple of time this year.
He didn’t come see me!” Ha ha.
Tony—call Luigi.
The girls wanna talk to you.
#
Barney’s, my favorite breakfast omelette.
Rock stars present—allegedly, that dude over there
is from Bowling For Soup. MTV in da house!
Megan’s stoked—Cendejas could care less.
We talk good stuff and laugh a lot and gossip.
We can’t believe that we got the van
into that parking space
and neither can the valet
who is mad we got there before he did
and aren’t paying him big Sunday tips.
#
We proceed to La Brea Tar Pits and groove on the blurp
brubb blapth of the oozing tar bubbles.
Black bones & a sweet madwoman
who follows me around babbling, “Gosh! I don’t know where
all this sketching talent came from! You take a class
& suddenly it’s just sketch and sketch and sketch! And
this place is so arty! So interesting, don’t you think?
All this amazing extinct wildlife right here in Los Angeles! Elephants!
Camels! Dire wolves! Why, I could just go on all day! Is that your child?
In fact, to tell you the truth,
just this morning
I was thinking.…”
I engage my Buddha Nature and exude love and compassion and joy
& beat it the hell out of there.
#
Million hour drive
to idyllic Santa Barbara—
ridgelines designed by Dali
covered in vast white propellers.
To the Fess Parker DoubleTree Resort.
A $750 room
that smells like a dirty diaper.
Out for a wild
beach ramble—Chayo in the waves
like a porpoise. C walking, smiling.
E shirtless, trying to get a hot drumline tan.
M snapping pix like a machine. And me, up to my ass
(sorry upright Texas lady) in ice water
catching all those crazy little sand crabs
--coquinas?—that body surf
up the beach.
#
When Cinderella and I walk into the lobby to see
what’s up w/ the Book Festival, several people
do an Oh-My-God-That’s-Him double-take.
It spooks me: I think someone famous is behind me, then I think
my zipper must be open.
I hide behind C at the Starbuck’s and avoid eye contact.
I thought I was invisible. I used to be invisible. What happened?
In the bookstore, I see I’m on the cover of the program.
I’m featured in the new issue of THE WRITER magazine.
All my books are stacked on the tables. Oh, OK.
Success happened.
All over the hotel, people stare at us as we walk by.
Smile, Dear.
It’s The Public.
#
We walk past a suite on the ground floor after supper
& there’s a crowded cocktail party in there
& the whole party stops and the folks inside
watch us through the window.
“Keep walking,” I tell her.
#
I feel like a giant ground sloth recently climbed out
of the tar pits.
#
When I went to dinner, I missed Joseph Wambaugh.
The waitress didn’t know what food they were serving.
She had to read the menu to figure out what we were ordering.
We waited an hour and forty-five minutes
for our food to come.
WWFPD?
What Would Fess Parker Do?
#
Still, the resort is physically lovely.
Intoxicating us w/ flowers & vines & palms
& beach across the street.
It aint
my day job.
#
Monday, June 23
Waves on the shore.
George Carlin died last night.
Tim Russert died at the start of the trip.
How can it be the perfect
seaside morning? All sun, all
cool ocean breeze?
A genius dies—the world
doesn’t stop.
It’s the same for a reviled paisano
broiling to death on the border.
Millionaire. Artiste.
Child. Soldier. Political pariah.
Sun comes up.
Surfers surf.
All equal, all concerned
w/ lunch, w/ bowel movements,
cheap gas, beer prices.
everybody in church
hoping to come out, at least,
even.
The tide
doesn’t care.
#
Call from our house-sitter: he came home
to find our bathroom remodeling crew
on the couch w/ the big screen going,
watching Polish TV on the satellite.
We coulnd’t stop laughing.
There is something so
pure
about that!
#
JUST MY LUCK DEPT. # 712:
Eric & I take Chayo on a beach walk of epic
sand-crab, pelican-chasing, body-surfing scope
for a mile down to the pier and a mile back.
Feeling smug because Cindy and Megan are doing laundry.
& because Meg is sunburned bright plastic red.
Coquinas? Coquilles?
Chayo calls them “Cocaines.”
“Hey Dad!” she shouts over and over.
“You want some
cocaines?!?”
Passersby glance our way
w/ a certain curiosity.
So
C & M call.
“Guess who we just met.”
Who.
“John McCain!”
Liars!!!
we shout.
There they were, washing out the skivvies, and
McCain ambles by and says, “Hey,
how ya doin’?” on his way
to the elevator.
We beat it back to the resort to get in on
presidential politics—hummingbirds everywhere
in the red blossoms. Secret Service agents
are suddenly everywhere, too—even the “Mexican gardener”
has a wire going to his ear. The “handyman” in coveralls
has a wire in his ear and talks
into his jumpsuit. SPYWORLD!
They surround a swarthy fellow at the pool. One agent in a blue blazer
holds up a cell phone and snaps a picture of the sunbather.
“Say cheese,” he says. Then they roust the guy.
His blonde cutie sidekick stands there as if entreating the heavens
to give her some explanation. Spy-bots are all over the pool enclosure.
Suddenly,
the dark-skinned dude busts loose and runs away!
Secret Service agents scurry after him—running in neat
straight lines.
Holy moly!
It’some kind of terrorist event right next to the deep end!
#
McCain’s in room 331.
We’re in 254.
Cinderella wants to go over there
and give him my books.
#
CNN & MSNBC pool reporters
Slump around looking miserable & dragging bags.
Black SUVs line up.
Tourists are going, “Who’s that?
Is that somebody?”
We know,
but we won’t tell.
It’s a matter of National Security!
JOHN McCAIN DOES MY LAUNDRY.
#
We send the kids off to ride rented bikes
& attend the Book Festival cocktail party.
All kinds of nice people corner me & say all kinds
of awesomely nice & generous things about me & my
books, & none of them seem to care one bit
about McCain, but I can’t shake the sense
that real history is here with us now & it isn’t
me.
I am all AW SHUCKS when so many people tell me Hummingbird
is on their list of top 5 all-time favorite books, or top 10
or top 20, unless it’s a guy w/ a beer who says forget that
healer bidness—that Devil’s H book is the top-5 of all time!
What do you say?
Sip white wine & hang on to yr wife, wishing
the wine were Coke Zero, & you say, “Uh, well, thanx,
but did you see John McCain today?”
We leave our wine glasses on a table
& sneak away.
Tired & sun-fried.
Ten minutes of quiet time in the room—
no chance to strip naked as monkeys and ricochet off the walls—
when the kids come tumbling in loudly, in full-
argument mode.
“We want room service!” the young billionaires announce.
I watch George Carlin testimonials.
I don’t imagine he’d have swell things to share w/ McCain.
Napa fires. Big Sure fires. We started this trip
skirting floods, then we escaped tornadoes, now
we’ll drive thru massive conflagrations.
It’s the Armageddon Tour of the American West.
#
Out on the balcony.
Perfect Pacific wind
coming thru palms, carrying the smell of salt. Roses,
bougainvillea, honeysuckle, geraniums.
Succulents, my favorites,
grow as big as Christmas turkeys.
I have no shame, man. Buy me a $750 room. Get me an itty bitty
stucco cottage over by the water? I’ll register Republican,
vote the party ticket straight across
& to heck with it.
Let’s retire.
#
Invasion of the Bird-Men!
Evening.
On the walkways outside our room,
Secret Service guys
line up, one every 50 yards
all across the grounds.
They whistle to each other.
Whistles move down the line.
Then they start to walk, single-file
while a woman in a black dress
circles the pool looking for evil scuba divers.
Our kids risk imprisonment by rushing to the lobby
to spy on the spies.
Supper: fish.
Dirty Jobs on TV. Kids
doing the dirty job of spying on the candidate.
Cinderella on the laptop, doing the edits and cuts
Geoff, the Little, Brown editor-god has asked of my novel.
Talk about a dirty job.
I’m on the balcony.
iPod.
Thinking: nothing.
#
Late night: room still smells weird.
Eric says someone hid a dead body under the bed.
Cindy & Megan, the mature members of the crew,
sleep. But E, Chayo & I have a screaming gasping
insomniac laughing fit.
It begins when I say something apparently demented,
and E quips,
“Man, that’s a real smile
& shake your head moment.”
Then he says,
“OK, Dude—just promise me
you won’t get up and axe-murder us
in our sleep!”
Just when we pipe down, Chayo announces:
“I’m gonna call Senator McCain and say,
‘Mr. McCain, can you smell the poo?’”
#
Tuesday June 24
Cinderella and I, out early while the kids sleep in.
We take our morning constitutional for a couple of miles
along the sea.
On the sand, beside and below the pier,
an eloquent bit of—art? Protest? Scamming?
Faith? I don’t know what it was.
Homeless people had set up a sleeping bag, open, like a
table cloth. Red plaid part facing up. At one end, a cardboard box.
Up-ended. On the box, a paper plate, plastic fork, spoon, knife. Paper cup
holding wildflowers & weeds. Set up as though dinner were about
to be served.
Oh, and in the middle of the plate was a stone.
A sign on the blanket/sleeping bag:
SIMPLY HUNGRY.
#
Sitting at the near end of the sleeping bag,
there was a plastic bucket
w/ another sign:
TRY YOUR LUCK.
Three or four quarters
scattered in the sand around it.
As our London pals often say—Brilliant.
No sound but sea birds
and waves.
#
My talk tonight at the Book Fest:
home run. Sold out all their books.
Signed books for so long
I got kicked out of the room.
Totally owned it.
Even though a woman asked me
if I was Megan’s grand-father,
I go to bed spent
& high.
AUDIO
[The Wastelanders are a form of prose-sketching I invented on the road. You can find all the sections of this sequence in the blog archives from this summer. Others are scattered in the deeper archives from last year and before.]
Last night I dropped my chains
and walked away.
My eyes were almost blind,
and yet I saw
against eternity’s blue slope
a shadow like myself,
pilgrim of blood and gold.
--John Haines
Sunday June 22
All the leaves are brown,
And the sky is gray….
#
Going to beloved Barney’s Beanery
on the tattered tail-end of Route 66,
unholy Santa Monica Blvd.
surrounded by the ghosts of insane David Thomson/Rick Elias 20 yr old
Hollywood living—nights of The Whiskey & The Rainbow---all night prowling
talking to street people, watching Gregg Allman nod off in midnight diner,
talking to hookers on corners about going to London some day,
pulling practical jokes in the street
& being rousted by cops at three a.m., tussling w/ punks
on Sunset strip.
Now, here
to eat brunch w/ our hero, Mike Cendejas—engineer
of my new movie career.
Auspicious e-mail today: Luis Mandoki
is going to Aspen for a week
to do Hummingbird prep work
w/ Antonio Banderas.
I said, “Gee—I was in Aspen a couple of time this year.
He didn’t come see me!” Ha ha.
Tony—call Luigi.
The girls wanna talk to you.
#
Barney’s, my favorite breakfast omelette.
Rock stars present—allegedly, that dude over there
is from Bowling For Soup. MTV in da house!
Megan’s stoked—Cendejas could care less.
We talk good stuff and laugh a lot and gossip.
We can’t believe that we got the van
into that parking space
and neither can the valet
who is mad we got there before he did
and aren’t paying him big Sunday tips.
#
We proceed to La Brea Tar Pits and groove on the blurp
brubb blapth of the oozing tar bubbles.
Black bones & a sweet madwoman
who follows me around babbling, “Gosh! I don’t know where
all this sketching talent came from! You take a class
& suddenly it’s just sketch and sketch and sketch! And
this place is so arty! So interesting, don’t you think?
All this amazing extinct wildlife right here in Los Angeles! Elephants!
Camels! Dire wolves! Why, I could just go on all day! Is that your child?
In fact, to tell you the truth,
just this morning
I was thinking.…”
I engage my Buddha Nature and exude love and compassion and joy
& beat it the hell out of there.
#
Million hour drive
to idyllic Santa Barbara—
ridgelines designed by Dali
covered in vast white propellers.
To the Fess Parker DoubleTree Resort.
A $750 room
that smells like a dirty diaper.
Out for a wild
beach ramble—Chayo in the waves
like a porpoise. C walking, smiling.
E shirtless, trying to get a hot drumline tan.
M snapping pix like a machine. And me, up to my ass
(sorry upright Texas lady) in ice water
catching all those crazy little sand crabs
--coquinas?—that body surf
up the beach.
#
When Cinderella and I walk into the lobby to see
what’s up w/ the Book Festival, several people
do an Oh-My-God-That’s-Him double-take.
It spooks me: I think someone famous is behind me, then I think
my zipper must be open.
I hide behind C at the Starbuck’s and avoid eye contact.
I thought I was invisible. I used to be invisible. What happened?
In the bookstore, I see I’m on the cover of the program.
I’m featured in the new issue of THE WRITER magazine.
All my books are stacked on the tables. Oh, OK.
Success happened.
All over the hotel, people stare at us as we walk by.
Smile, Dear.
It’s The Public.
#
We walk past a suite on the ground floor after supper
& there’s a crowded cocktail party in there
& the whole party stops and the folks inside
watch us through the window.
“Keep walking,” I tell her.
#
I feel like a giant ground sloth recently climbed out
of the tar pits.
#
When I went to dinner, I missed Joseph Wambaugh.
The waitress didn’t know what food they were serving.
She had to read the menu to figure out what we were ordering.
We waited an hour and forty-five minutes
for our food to come.
WWFPD?
What Would Fess Parker Do?
#
Still, the resort is physically lovely.
Intoxicating us w/ flowers & vines & palms
& beach across the street.
It aint
my day job.
#
Monday, June 23
Waves on the shore.
George Carlin died last night.
Tim Russert died at the start of the trip.
How can it be the perfect
seaside morning? All sun, all
cool ocean breeze?
A genius dies—the world
doesn’t stop.
It’s the same for a reviled paisano
broiling to death on the border.
Millionaire. Artiste.
Child. Soldier. Political pariah.
Sun comes up.
Surfers surf.
All equal, all concerned
w/ lunch, w/ bowel movements,
cheap gas, beer prices.
everybody in church
hoping to come out, at least,
even.
The tide
doesn’t care.
#
Call from our house-sitter: he came home
to find our bathroom remodeling crew
on the couch w/ the big screen going,
watching Polish TV on the satellite.
We coulnd’t stop laughing.
There is something so
pure
about that!
#
JUST MY LUCK DEPT. # 712:
Eric & I take Chayo on a beach walk of epic
sand-crab, pelican-chasing, body-surfing scope
for a mile down to the pier and a mile back.
Feeling smug because Cindy and Megan are doing laundry.
& because Meg is sunburned bright plastic red.
Coquinas? Coquilles?
Chayo calls them “Cocaines.”
“Hey Dad!” she shouts over and over.
“You want some
cocaines?!?”
Passersby glance our way
w/ a certain curiosity.
So
C & M call.
“Guess who we just met.”
Who.
“John McCain!”
Liars!!!
we shout.
There they were, washing out the skivvies, and
McCain ambles by and says, “Hey,
how ya doin’?” on his way
to the elevator.
We beat it back to the resort to get in on
presidential politics—hummingbirds everywhere
in the red blossoms. Secret Service agents
are suddenly everywhere, too—even the “Mexican gardener”
has a wire going to his ear. The “handyman” in coveralls
has a wire in his ear and talks
into his jumpsuit. SPYWORLD!
They surround a swarthy fellow at the pool. One agent in a blue blazer
holds up a cell phone and snaps a picture of the sunbather.
“Say cheese,” he says. Then they roust the guy.
His blonde cutie sidekick stands there as if entreating the heavens
to give her some explanation. Spy-bots are all over the pool enclosure.
Suddenly,
the dark-skinned dude busts loose and runs away!
Secret Service agents scurry after him—running in neat
straight lines.
Holy moly!
It’some kind of terrorist event right next to the deep end!
#
McCain’s in room 331.
We’re in 254.
Cinderella wants to go over there
and give him my books.
#
CNN & MSNBC pool reporters
Slump around looking miserable & dragging bags.
Black SUVs line up.
Tourists are going, “Who’s that?
Is that somebody?”
We know,
but we won’t tell.
It’s a matter of National Security!
JOHN McCAIN DOES MY LAUNDRY.
#
We send the kids off to ride rented bikes
& attend the Book Festival cocktail party.
All kinds of nice people corner me & say all kinds
of awesomely nice & generous things about me & my
books, & none of them seem to care one bit
about McCain, but I can’t shake the sense
that real history is here with us now & it isn’t
me.
I am all AW SHUCKS when so many people tell me Hummingbird
is on their list of top 5 all-time favorite books, or top 10
or top 20, unless it’s a guy w/ a beer who says forget that
healer bidness—that Devil’s H book is the top-5 of all time!
What do you say?
Sip white wine & hang on to yr wife, wishing
the wine were Coke Zero, & you say, “Uh, well, thanx,
but did you see John McCain today?”
We leave our wine glasses on a table
& sneak away.
Tired & sun-fried.
Ten minutes of quiet time in the room—
no chance to strip naked as monkeys and ricochet off the walls—
when the kids come tumbling in loudly, in full-
argument mode.
“We want room service!” the young billionaires announce.
I watch George Carlin testimonials.
I don’t imagine he’d have swell things to share w/ McCain.
Napa fires. Big Sure fires. We started this trip
skirting floods, then we escaped tornadoes, now
we’ll drive thru massive conflagrations.
It’s the Armageddon Tour of the American West.
#
Out on the balcony.
Perfect Pacific wind
coming thru palms, carrying the smell of salt. Roses,
bougainvillea, honeysuckle, geraniums.
Succulents, my favorites,
grow as big as Christmas turkeys.
I have no shame, man. Buy me a $750 room. Get me an itty bitty
stucco cottage over by the water? I’ll register Republican,
vote the party ticket straight across
& to heck with it.
Let’s retire.
#
Invasion of the Bird-Men!
Evening.
On the walkways outside our room,
Secret Service guys
line up, one every 50 yards
all across the grounds.
They whistle to each other.
Whistles move down the line.
Then they start to walk, single-file
while a woman in a black dress
circles the pool looking for evil scuba divers.
Our kids risk imprisonment by rushing to the lobby
to spy on the spies.
Supper: fish.
Dirty Jobs on TV. Kids
doing the dirty job of spying on the candidate.
Cinderella on the laptop, doing the edits and cuts
Geoff, the Little, Brown editor-god has asked of my novel.
Talk about a dirty job.
I’m on the balcony.
iPod.
Thinking: nothing.
#
Late night: room still smells weird.
Eric says someone hid a dead body under the bed.
Cindy & Megan, the mature members of the crew,
sleep. But E, Chayo & I have a screaming gasping
insomniac laughing fit.
It begins when I say something apparently demented,
and E quips,
“Man, that’s a real smile
& shake your head moment.”
Then he says,
“OK, Dude—just promise me
you won’t get up and axe-murder us
in our sleep!”
Just when we pipe down, Chayo announces:
“I’m gonna call Senator McCain and say,
‘Mr. McCain, can you smell the poo?’”
#
Tuesday June 24
Cinderella and I, out early while the kids sleep in.
We take our morning constitutional for a couple of miles
along the sea.
On the sand, beside and below the pier,
an eloquent bit of—art? Protest? Scamming?
Faith? I don’t know what it was.
Homeless people had set up a sleeping bag, open, like a
table cloth. Red plaid part facing up. At one end, a cardboard box.
Up-ended. On the box, a paper plate, plastic fork, spoon, knife. Paper cup
holding wildflowers & weeds. Set up as though dinner were about
to be served.
Oh, and in the middle of the plate was a stone.
A sign on the blanket/sleeping bag:
SIMPLY HUNGRY.
#
Sitting at the near end of the sleeping bag,
there was a plastic bucket
w/ another sign:
TRY YOUR LUCK.
Three or four quarters
scattered in the sand around it.
As our London pals often say—Brilliant.
No sound but sea birds
and waves.
#
My talk tonight at the Book Fest:
home run. Sold out all their books.
Signed books for so long
I got kicked out of the room.
Totally owned it.
Even though a woman asked me
if I was Megan’s grand-father,
I go to bed spent
& high.
10/10/2008
I have often mentioned here my friendship with singe-songwriter Shawn Phillips (Contribution, Second Contribution, Collaboartion, Faces, Bright White, Furthermore, No Category, etc.).
If you've been reading the blog long, you know that Shawn Composed the musical soundtrack to my audiobook of The Hummingbird's Daughter. (Yeah, you can get it! If you can stand 20 hours of me yammering in your ear! Try audible.com and iTunes.) You probably also know the satory of how Shawn was my boyhood rock and roll hero and pulled me out of obscue poverty and became my pal and showed me the way. Or how Shawn proposed marriage to his Juliet in my driveway. Aint life funny.
Well, SP has been touring the US and the world--many of you saw him. He has composed a song based on my The Devil's Highway. It's a killer. It's called, well, "The Devil's Highway." If you saw him on tour, you heard it, and you heard SP talking about our history. Now, if you'd like, you can hear it again, or for the first time.
www.shawnphillips.com/NewMp3/DevilsHighway.mp3
Thanks to the boss at shawnphillips.com, SUZ!
The Sultan of Swing
If you've been reading the blog long, you know that Shawn Composed the musical soundtrack to my audiobook of The Hummingbird's Daughter. (Yeah, you can get it! If you can stand 20 hours of me yammering in your ear! Try audible.com and iTunes.) You probably also know the satory of how Shawn was my boyhood rock and roll hero and pulled me out of obscue poverty and became my pal and showed me the way. Or how Shawn proposed marriage to his Juliet in my driveway. Aint life funny.
Well, SP has been touring the US and the world--many of you saw him. He has composed a song based on my The Devil's Highway. It's a killer. It's called, well, "The Devil's Highway." If you saw him on tour, you heard it, and you heard SP talking about our history. Now, if you'd like, you can hear it again, or for the first time.
www.shawnphillips.com/NewMp3/DevilsHighway.mp3
Thanks to the boss at shawnphillips.com, SUZ!
10/08/2008
Yo, My Peeps--I told you I've been out and about, or as my dear Canadian pals say, oot and aboot. So I did this gig at SMU in Dallas. I think it was good, but I'm always in a daze at these events. I also told you I was going to add audio to the blog. Uh, that's hard for a luddite/troglodite like me. But I CAN give you a big juicy link to my SMU podcast.
I cannot verify if this is worth your tuning in, but at Radio Hummingbird, the Hits Just Keep On Comin'!
http://smu.edu/newsinfo/audio/LuisAlbertoUrrea-8sep2008.MP3
See you with "Wastelander V" in a few.
XXXXOOOOXXXX,
Luige
The Wastelander IV
I cannot verify if this is worth your tuning in, but at Radio Hummingbird, the Hits Just Keep On Comin'!
http://smu.edu/newsinfo/audio/LuisAlbertoUrrea-8sep2008.MP3
See you with "Wastelander V" in a few.
XXXXOOOOXXXX,
Luige
10/06/2008
Viva Las Vegas: Hooray for Hollywood
[The Wastelanders are a form of prose-sketching I came up with on the road. You can find the first three sections of this sequence in the blog archive from this summer.]
For the world is an Eye
And the universe is Seeing
Liquid
Rare
Radiant.
--Jack Kerouac
Flagstaff, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada.
Wreck on I-40: U Haul
flipped over railing—all
belongings scattered downhill
bright as wildflowers.
#
Newspaper interview via cell phone as we
drive out of the forests & the kids laugh
at “famous Dad.”
#
I want to drive down it:
DEVIL DOG ROAD.
#
Kingman.
Only 247 degrees
in the shade.
Sonic.
Turdburgers. More road poison.
Fuel for
Las Vegas.
#
110 degrees. Dead roads
up thru skeletal mtns.
Suddenly
the terror
of Hoover Dam.
Into the Hoover Dam Museum—my second
museum stop already today,
from ancient Sinagua ruins
to this vast battlement
of agua.
Then
looking down the insanity of the cliff
of the dam face.
The suicidal pull to the far green water.
Another Western vista
that wants to kill you.
We drink bottle after bottle
of ice water but it feels
like it turns to steam before
it ever hits our gullets.
#
Into
Cheez-Whiz
Las Vegas.
Goober teens in the back seat
going insane w/ excitement: no trees! No
boring deer! No ponds or waterfalls or
ruins or vistas! & me, behind the wheel
cursing the traffic (oops, sorry, lady from Texas
who sent me an e-mail this morning that Devil’s H might be a good
book but she can’t recommend it because of language—
there certainly are avenues available to authors to tell a story
without bad language—not that she didn’t think
Mexicans had, you know, human rights). Shit!
I say. Son of a BITCH!
“Daddy,” Chayo chirps from the back seat,
“you owe me a quarter
for bad language!”
Pictures of women’s butts
loom three stories high on casino walls.
Men stand in the brutal light passing out
porno leaflets.
I hate this place.
Excalibur, Luxor—everybody looking
for Criss Angel in case he’s levitating
above the pyramid—Mandalay Bay.
We trudge into the hotels and march
along w/ the Party People thru tunnels
of ciggie smoke and blinking swirling
neon lights. Kids drunk
on neon and plush carpets. Pure casino
oxygen pumped in to get gamblers stoned
on hope puts pep in everybody’s step & I
suddenly feel the basal desire to put coins
in slots.
Here’s all you need to say about Vegas:
a Criss Angel t-shirt
costs $100.
#
At Dick’s Bar,
a woman smacked Cinderella
w/ her stump.
#
Excalibur: connecting rooms. Locking door.
What every parent secretly wants: quiet.
And maybe CNN.
Outside our door,
there’s a small puddle of barf
on the Excalibur rug.
Party on, Dudes!
#
Friday, Whatever
Freak-watching at breakfast.
Dad at the next table sends back six breakfasts
in a row. Finally, the manager comes out
to see what the F could go wrong w/ so many eggs.
There’s a wall at Mandalay Bay w/ giant swollen
female body parts oozing out of holes.
& into the admittedly amazing aquarium.
Millions of gambling dollars make for spiffy
fish tanks.
Over to MGM to gawk at their lions.
Shops, casinos—teens looking critically
at the hunched gray coin-maniacs pulling
levers over and over--& proof that we’re real suburban
sophisticates, we go see the 3-D M&M movie
then spend an hour in the M&M shop buying purple
M&Ms. I can’t even eat ‘em.
I find some sugar-free ice cream, & Eric & I find
a magician levitating a playing card in mid-air
& he takes us in his back room & shows us
how to make the card float, spin & circle
our bodies. We are Penn & Teller!
Off, Faire Wizards and Magicians, to Chayo’s obsession:
Rainforest Cafe! Rubber elephants! Rubber food!
Salad & diet coke for me.
Sun-stroked & my feet are falling off.
But the fam is happy.
Sharks
Sting rays
Komodo dragons
Moray eels
Jellyfish
Octopi
Turtles
Horseshoe crabs
Giant Asian water monitors
Golden crocodiles
Lions
& North American Gamblers.
On the way between casinos & hotels, we paused
because Chayo wanted a picture
w/ a towering showgirl in full regalia.
C and Meg worked the cameras. I wandered off to the side
& discovered what they couldn’t see in the front:
a fully bare bootay.
#
They go to the pool.
I set the a.c. for zero degrees and lie on the bed
watching Motley Crue on cable.
Nikki Sixx!
Sixx! Sixx! Sixx!
I’ma grow me a chin patch like Sixx!
I look around. Empty king-size bed
in a fancy overpriced hotel.
On my way to Cali for a reading.
The Crue on the tube & William Stafford poems
beside me, an end-of-the-world paperback thriller
on the night stand beside the water bottle.
My notebook. My trusty G2 pen.
On the road.
Damn. That’s me now. That’s it.
That’s my secret life.
#
Hey, it’s night.
Other sophisticated Vegas thrill-seekers
hit the Texas Hold ‘Em table.
I take my 8 year old
to the basement to the “4-D” Spongebob
Squarepants ride.
#
Eric, Megan & I
Head out for a late night Vegas
stroll down the Strip. Turns
into miles of neon-lit hiking
surrounded by the astounding
human zoo.
Item:
woman in painful 4 inch high heels
& a blue see-thru dress, no panties,
drunk to zombification,
sitting on planter boxes
every few feet.
Yelling.
Item:
gang task-force cops
rousting vatos w/ shaved heads
against a wall.
Item:
normal-sized guy
carrying a 2 ½ foot tall
man thru the crowd,
the tiny man
giving high fives to his pedestrian friends
who shout, “Hey,
Mini-Me!”
Item:
too-fat disco divas
in too-tight dresses
walking barefoot: the skin
of their feet
gone the color
of tar.
Item:
Eric is just as big a sucker
as me—falls in love
w/ the sad-looking woman
w/ music notes tattooed
on her arms handing out
flyers to some club
all alone.
Item:
a drunk Asian woman
pulled over by about 15 cops
giggling thru a sobriety test
bursts into sobs
then passes out
standing up
leaning on her boyfriend’s chest.
He tries to negotiate
w/ the cops.
Suddenly,
the dancing-waters fountains
begin their extravaganza.
She doesn’t
see it.
Item: unexpected
Laserium show in a hallway
of a mall.
Then
we stumble on a dance club,
strippers visible thru open doors
on elevated stage w/ a pole to one side.
Megan: “It’s just like
what I thought it would
be like.”
Item:
Clearly undocumented Mexicans
in GIRLS DIRECT
TO YOUR ROOM t-shirts
lurk in shadows
handing out porno-hooker
cards by the hundreds.
In the lights, the hubbub, the noise, the bumping
endless shuffle, the laughter and the car
horns and the cops and the rock muzak booming from speakers
and the drunks and the cop cars and the flash-flash-flash and the
helicopters, Megan says: “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Camera goes:
click click click click.
#
Saturday. Escape.
As we trudged back & forth to the van w/ luggage,
Cinderella and I won $26 on a $12 slot investment.
Hot gamblers.
We said to the guy in the cage:
“We don’t want to break the bank!”
He said nothing.
#
We waste over an hour searching for
“Sam’s Town” because it’s on a Killers CD.
My heroic gesture for Megan.
Mom wanting to kill the kids and me, the kids
wanting to kill the adults, Chayo excited
because there’s a robot duck, beaver,
bear.
Can’t get out.
Wrong turns. No gas. No breakfast places. U turns.
Las Vegas is a Venus Flytrap
conspiring to trap all travelers
a little longer
till some more of their vital juices
are sucked out.
#
Every inch of I-15
a living burned-out hell.
Dirt, Dirt. Heat. Dirt.
Day of hate.
Eric refuses to talk to anybody.
Moving slow as a wagon train.
L.A. is only 9,000 miles away.
Vatos
in Victorville
want so badly
to
kick
my ass.
I keep my eyes on my pump.
½ tank: $70.00.
2, 250 miles.
5 car fender-bender,
men in the fast lane
screaming at each other.
¼ mile later,
multiple spinout crashes
on opposite side of the freeway,
CHP everywhere.
Doom.
#
In the continuing spirit of God
punishing us for our Vegas sins, our L.A.
hotel cancelled our reservation & the desk men
give us the fish eye as if we are trying to pull
some fast one of their glittering Culver Cityness.
Road chaos.
Those days when it all turns to crap,
not even good fertilizer, just dog poo
stuck to a shoe.
#
I drive Eric to Hollywood
to buy him birthday CDs at holy
Amoeba Music.
900 degrees at midnight.
A young man walking down
Fairfax near Santa Monica
Holds up a sign that says:
WILL STRIP
$4.
Guy at the parking lot says, “It’s $20 if you park yourself,
$15 for the valet.”
Wha? I say.
“$20 if you park it.
$15 if I park it.”
Whatever.
It’s Hollywood, man—
don’t try to make sense of it.
E is convinced the bearded guy stocking CDs is the
singer from Clutch. Famous Beards of America.
Aisles and aisles.
He finds some obscure Porcupine Tree,
which makes me laugh.
As if Porcupine Tree isn’t obscure
enough in its regular releases.
That’s m’boy!
I, of course, flip out when I find
export Shriekbacks! Two of them!
And a $5 Van der Graaf
Generator!
You want obscure, boy?
I’LL GIVE YOU OBSCURE.
Freaks and punks wander the building
w/ spinning eyeballs looking for their favorite
satanic juj-ju goth dance mix CDs.
After the orgy,
we walk the dark side street
to our baffling parking lot,
& I don’t let on
to birthday boy
that I have
no idea
how to get back
to the
hotel.
A small Mexican woman
delivers the van to us.
“Put on the Porcupine Tree,” I say
& feel my way thru the dark.
The fans love me!
[The Wastelanders are a form of prose-sketching I came up with on the road. You can find the first three sections of this sequence in the blog archive from this summer.]
For the world is an Eye
And the universe is Seeing
Liquid
Rare
Radiant.
--Jack Kerouac
Flagstaff, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada.
Wreck on I-40: U Haul
flipped over railing—all
belongings scattered downhill
bright as wildflowers.
#
Newspaper interview via cell phone as we
drive out of the forests & the kids laugh
at “famous Dad.”
#
I want to drive down it:
DEVIL DOG ROAD.
#
Kingman.
Only 247 degrees
in the shade.
Sonic.
Turdburgers. More road poison.
Fuel for
Las Vegas.
#
110 degrees. Dead roads
up thru skeletal mtns.
Suddenly
the terror
of Hoover Dam.
Into the Hoover Dam Museum—my second
museum stop already today,
from ancient Sinagua ruins
to this vast battlement
of agua.
Then
looking down the insanity of the cliff
of the dam face.
The suicidal pull to the far green water.
Another Western vista
that wants to kill you.
We drink bottle after bottle
of ice water but it feels
like it turns to steam before
it ever hits our gullets.
#
Into
Cheez-Whiz
Las Vegas.
Goober teens in the back seat
going insane w/ excitement: no trees! No
boring deer! No ponds or waterfalls or
ruins or vistas! & me, behind the wheel
cursing the traffic (oops, sorry, lady from Texas
who sent me an e-mail this morning that Devil’s H might be a good
book but she can’t recommend it because of language—
there certainly are avenues available to authors to tell a story
without bad language—not that she didn’t think
Mexicans had, you know, human rights). Shit!
I say. Son of a BITCH!
“Daddy,” Chayo chirps from the back seat,
“you owe me a quarter
for bad language!”
Pictures of women’s butts
loom three stories high on casino walls.
Men stand in the brutal light passing out
porno leaflets.
I hate this place.
Excalibur, Luxor—everybody looking
for Criss Angel in case he’s levitating
above the pyramid—Mandalay Bay.
We trudge into the hotels and march
along w/ the Party People thru tunnels
of ciggie smoke and blinking swirling
neon lights. Kids drunk
on neon and plush carpets. Pure casino
oxygen pumped in to get gamblers stoned
on hope puts pep in everybody’s step & I
suddenly feel the basal desire to put coins
in slots.
Here’s all you need to say about Vegas:
a Criss Angel t-shirt
costs $100.
#
At Dick’s Bar,
a woman smacked Cinderella
w/ her stump.
#
Excalibur: connecting rooms. Locking door.
What every parent secretly wants: quiet.
And maybe CNN.
Outside our door,
there’s a small puddle of barf
on the Excalibur rug.
Party on, Dudes!
#
Friday, Whatever
Freak-watching at breakfast.
Dad at the next table sends back six breakfasts
in a row. Finally, the manager comes out
to see what the F could go wrong w/ so many eggs.
There’s a wall at Mandalay Bay w/ giant swollen
female body parts oozing out of holes.
& into the admittedly amazing aquarium.
Millions of gambling dollars make for spiffy
fish tanks.
Over to MGM to gawk at their lions.
Shops, casinos—teens looking critically
at the hunched gray coin-maniacs pulling
levers over and over--& proof that we’re real suburban
sophisticates, we go see the 3-D M&M movie
then spend an hour in the M&M shop buying purple
M&Ms. I can’t even eat ‘em.
I find some sugar-free ice cream, & Eric & I find
a magician levitating a playing card in mid-air
& he takes us in his back room & shows us
how to make the card float, spin & circle
our bodies. We are Penn & Teller!
Off, Faire Wizards and Magicians, to Chayo’s obsession:
Rainforest Cafe! Rubber elephants! Rubber food!
Salad & diet coke for me.
Sun-stroked & my feet are falling off.
But the fam is happy.
Sharks
Sting rays
Komodo dragons
Moray eels
Jellyfish
Octopi
Turtles
Horseshoe crabs
Giant Asian water monitors
Golden crocodiles
Lions
& North American Gamblers.
On the way between casinos & hotels, we paused
because Chayo wanted a picture
w/ a towering showgirl in full regalia.
C and Meg worked the cameras. I wandered off to the side
& discovered what they couldn’t see in the front:
a fully bare bootay.
#
They go to the pool.
I set the a.c. for zero degrees and lie on the bed
watching Motley Crue on cable.
Nikki Sixx!
Sixx! Sixx! Sixx!
I’ma grow me a chin patch like Sixx!
I look around. Empty king-size bed
in a fancy overpriced hotel.
On my way to Cali for a reading.
The Crue on the tube & William Stafford poems
beside me, an end-of-the-world paperback thriller
on the night stand beside the water bottle.
My notebook. My trusty G2 pen.
On the road.
Damn. That’s me now. That’s it.
That’s my secret life.
#
Hey, it’s night.
Other sophisticated Vegas thrill-seekers
hit the Texas Hold ‘Em table.
I take my 8 year old
to the basement to the “4-D” Spongebob
Squarepants ride.
#
Eric, Megan & I
Head out for a late night Vegas
stroll down the Strip. Turns
into miles of neon-lit hiking
surrounded by the astounding
human zoo.
Item:
woman in painful 4 inch high heels
& a blue see-thru dress, no panties,
drunk to zombification,
sitting on planter boxes
every few feet.
Yelling.
Item:
gang task-force cops
rousting vatos w/ shaved heads
against a wall.
Item:
normal-sized guy
carrying a 2 ½ foot tall
man thru the crowd,
the tiny man
giving high fives to his pedestrian friends
who shout, “Hey,
Mini-Me!”
Item:
too-fat disco divas
in too-tight dresses
walking barefoot: the skin
of their feet
gone the color
of tar.
Item:
Eric is just as big a sucker
as me—falls in love
w/ the sad-looking woman
w/ music notes tattooed
on her arms handing out
flyers to some club
all alone.
Item:
a drunk Asian woman
pulled over by about 15 cops
giggling thru a sobriety test
bursts into sobs
then passes out
standing up
leaning on her boyfriend’s chest.
He tries to negotiate
w/ the cops.
Suddenly,
the dancing-waters fountains
begin their extravaganza.
She doesn’t
see it.
Item: unexpected
Laserium show in a hallway
of a mall.
Then
we stumble on a dance club,
strippers visible thru open doors
on elevated stage w/ a pole to one side.
Megan: “It’s just like
what I thought it would
be like.”
Item:
Clearly undocumented Mexicans
in GIRLS DIRECT
TO YOUR ROOM t-shirts
lurk in shadows
handing out porno-hooker
cards by the hundreds.
In the lights, the hubbub, the noise, the bumping
endless shuffle, the laughter and the car
horns and the cops and the rock muzak booming from speakers
and the drunks and the cop cars and the flash-flash-flash and the
helicopters, Megan says: “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Camera goes:
click click click click.
#
Saturday. Escape.
As we trudged back & forth to the van w/ luggage,
Cinderella and I won $26 on a $12 slot investment.
Hot gamblers.
We said to the guy in the cage:
“We don’t want to break the bank!”
He said nothing.
#
We waste over an hour searching for
“Sam’s Town” because it’s on a Killers CD.
My heroic gesture for Megan.
Mom wanting to kill the kids and me, the kids
wanting to kill the adults, Chayo excited
because there’s a robot duck, beaver,
bear.
Can’t get out.
Wrong turns. No gas. No breakfast places. U turns.
Las Vegas is a Venus Flytrap
conspiring to trap all travelers
a little longer
till some more of their vital juices
are sucked out.
#
Every inch of I-15
a living burned-out hell.
Dirt, Dirt. Heat. Dirt.
Day of hate.
Eric refuses to talk to anybody.
Moving slow as a wagon train.
L.A. is only 9,000 miles away.
Vatos
in Victorville
want so badly
to
kick
my ass.
I keep my eyes on my pump.
½ tank: $70.00.
2, 250 miles.
5 car fender-bender,
men in the fast lane
screaming at each other.
¼ mile later,
multiple spinout crashes
on opposite side of the freeway,
CHP everywhere.
Doom.
#
In the continuing spirit of God
punishing us for our Vegas sins, our L.A.
hotel cancelled our reservation & the desk men
give us the fish eye as if we are trying to pull
some fast one of their glittering Culver Cityness.
Road chaos.
Those days when it all turns to crap,
not even good fertilizer, just dog poo
stuck to a shoe.
#
I drive Eric to Hollywood
to buy him birthday CDs at holy
Amoeba Music.
900 degrees at midnight.
A young man walking down
Fairfax near Santa Monica
Holds up a sign that says:
WILL STRIP
$4.
Guy at the parking lot says, “It’s $20 if you park yourself,
$15 for the valet.”
Wha? I say.
“$20 if you park it.
$15 if I park it.”
Whatever.
It’s Hollywood, man—
don’t try to make sense of it.
E is convinced the bearded guy stocking CDs is the
singer from Clutch. Famous Beards of America.
Aisles and aisles.
He finds some obscure Porcupine Tree,
which makes me laugh.
As if Porcupine Tree isn’t obscure
enough in its regular releases.
That’s m’boy!
I, of course, flip out when I find
export Shriekbacks! Two of them!
And a $5 Van der Graaf
Generator!
You want obscure, boy?
I’LL GIVE YOU OBSCURE.
Freaks and punks wander the building
w/ spinning eyeballs looking for their favorite
satanic juj-ju goth dance mix CDs.
After the orgy,
we walk the dark side street
to our baffling parking lot,
& I don’t let on
to birthday boy
that I have
no idea
how to get back
to the
hotel.
A small Mexican woman
delivers the van to us.
“Put on the Porcupine Tree,” I say
& feel my way thru the dark.
10/04/2008
This is the best piece of fan mail ever. Received this morning ... of course, it's anonymous. Just thought I'd share with all of you:
Louis,
You are such a bunch of crap. Speeding is not the same as illegal immigration you moron.
If you Mexicans are so proud then change the way your country functions you asshole.
And talk about how Mexico treats the illegal immigrants from other countries. You fucking liar.
Assholes like you will kill the USA into another patch of Mexico with all the fucking issues you are running from in the first place.
Fucking Moron.....
Louis,
You are such a bunch of crap. Speeding is not the same as illegal immigration you moron.
If you Mexicans are so proud then change the way your country functions you asshole.
And talk about how Mexico treats the illegal immigrants from other countries. You fucking liar.
Assholes like you will kill the USA into another patch of Mexico with all the fucking issues you are running from in the first place.
Fucking Moron.....
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