bird

Ah! The Holidays

Rob sends an e mail:

"Hey man, Happy V. Day"

I reply:

"(thinking V. Day is celebrated in June) Why? What happened today? This is why I should watch the news. What got blown up?"

Rob responds:

"Valentine's...dumass".

I reply:
"Well that's relief...Look at you getting all soft sending me an abbreviated electronic Valentine. Sorta makes all that illicit non committal sex we've had seem sorta dirty."

Rob Responds:
"You're an asshole"

I reply:
"Cheese and crackers, I'm just joshing".

Rob does not reply:

I reply:
"Well you're mad. I guess I'll hear from you in a few weeks when you're pussy gets good and hungry".

Rob does not reply:

I reply:
"Are you really mad? Don't be silly man. I'm just fucking with you".

Rob does not reply:

I reply:
"Hey give me your number so I can call you and apologize...I lost it again".

Rob replies
"You really r an asshole."

I reply:
"Don't be a little bitch just give me your number".

Rob replies with both his cel and home #'s. If Christmas were this easy, why I'd celebrate it every year.

___________________________________________________________________________

SCENE 2:
Like Mother Like Daughter

(dinnertime on the phone with my two-year old nephew)

John: ...And chicken strips!

Me: Who taught you to say strips and not fingers?

John: And chicken STRIPS!

Me: Your father's indoctrinating you with product suspcion. You realize that don't you John.

John: (to his mother but into the receiver) I don't want anymore.

Me: John you know that Uncle Jim sells advertising in his spare time. So as a favor to Uncle Jim just say Chicken nuggets or fingers.

John: Uh hunh.

Me: Ok John, give mom the phone.

John: I love you Uncle Jim.

Me: Oh John....that phrase is copyrighted by the people at Hallmark. Did you know that?

silence

Me: Give mom the phone.

Carol: Hello (chewing)

Me: I didn't mean to interrupt Shabbas or whatever it is you people do on Mondays I just wanted to wish John a happy Valentine's day.

Carol: That was sweet of you. Do you have a Valentine's date.

Me: Ummm... no. I think I blew the opportunity for a 'date' via e mail this morning.

Carol: Well did you see the news about the killer strain of Aids.

Me: Good God Carol!

Carol: It develops in months instead of years.

Me: Why are you telling me this?

Carol: (with a mouthful of chicken strips) I just didn't want you to be depressed that you didn't have a date.

Me: You know I saw a documentary where a guy in Cracow said that if the jews came back they'd do it all over again.

Carol: That's a horrible thing to say.

Me: What? I thought we were sharing current events.

The Best Thing I Ever Saw.

Season's Greetings.

Life Lesson

Do Not date people who you meet through your blog.

O, August!

You tired whore.

Each year you slouch unnoticed from the bowels of July with the same promise, the same smells and the same gleaming gold toothed smile of a cankered old trollop. You put on quite a show of it this year with that blush of autumn and a bright harvest moon. Those midday crickets tweaking about time. You distracted us all to September long enough to plant your diseased feet in the spent soil of fortune's fields. Quite a production for one so brittle. This year is different dear old month. I aint buying your bullshit. I'm watching you like the tax man. Every breath of a promise every ray of hope, every rumor of new beginning is being catalogued and on the 31st you'll be expected to balance your accounts. I warn you if you fail, then come next year I am reverting to the ancient Hebrew calendar. I will renounce your place in the year so that it may be swallowed by the brighter months that flank you. I will confound you.

Don't fuck with me August. I got nothing to lose.

Pie For Breakfast

For a moment this morning, for a fleeting moment everything was clear. Everything was possible.

Last night the girls rolled out to Long Island to hang pool side at somebody's something's house. Being alone this morning meant that in this rare privacy I was afforded the luxury of drinking joe in my underwear at the kitchen table. I had Elizabethan music playing as my canaries bathed and sang in the crisp newness of early day. With all my windows and back door open the place was freshening. It was a rockin morning. As the dulcet tones of the viol-de-gamboy rolled on a soft breeze throughout the house I dredged the last of the coffee, hopped in a quick shower with the door open and then sat on the toilet taking a shit, swabbing my ears clean and reading a week old Cindy Adams' column...because it was at hand. Old news but handy.

There's something wonderful about a post-shower ear swabbing. What begins as a rudimentary ritual slowly evolves into a sort of tantric hygiene... like a soul douching. The repeated passes through the already clean canal, the gentle rhythmic sweeping, both seem to brush one into a state of near grace. It's almost as if someone wonderful is there beside you, offering up reassuring words as you begin to lull and lean to the right into the omnipresent and loving breast of the universe. The mind wanders. Cindy blathers. I wonder who any of these people are. It was in the throes of one of these nirvanic moments that I had, for a very brief moment, a vision.

As my eyes began to focus a few inches before the black and white page and my wrist made soft circles I caught a glimpse from the corner of my eye, of a specter moving through my home. An old white dog or more exactly a white wolf, glided from the bedroom, passed the open bathroom door and through the kitchen. I turned my head in time to see it's ghost white tail sail past the door frame.

I have often dreamed of white animals but this was the first to appear to me in a conscious state. The moment of recognizing him hung infinitely. Some portal had been left or swabbed open for him and he casually came into my sight. I suddenly sensed the familiarity of his passive presence and though I hadn't recognized them before I was now keenly aware of the legions of spirits which seemed to move about my life with the greatest of ease. There was no urgency in his padding throughout my rooms, he was simply passing next to me as he has done countless times before. Reassuring. He did not stop to regard me or to impart some universal truth as I sat evacuating; making room for whatever message he may have carried on his grizzled back. With my wrist still turning, stirring the workings of my soul I began to understand the equilibrium of all things in life seen and unseen. I wasn't frightened, in fact I felt emboldened to know that my spirit guide was a wolf. As I sat in solitude and on my toilet I began to understand how his lupine majesty is reflected in myself. From my throne I was flush with satisfaction about the kind of person that I have worked so hard to become. I was strong and fearless and for a moment I was free to move and amble unseen across this earth; to accept opportunity.

All of this wonderment happened in the blink of an eye.

The very next moment, practically on the breath's end of this epiphany was altogether a different one. It was scored by the sounds of faint yet hurried shuffling. Still swabbing I stared off into the bedroom and was confronted with the figure of a man. His manic energy sobered me from the previous moment. Feeling no need to move I sat and continued to watch this new guest. He moved nervously and apologetically as he stepped gingerly through the morning rooms. Unlike the 'wolf' the man did take a moment to regard me on the toilet and he spoke as well.

Justin, my downstairs neighbor was truly contrite, if not for the intrusion then perhaps sorry that he was forced to witness the indelible image of his big gay upstairs neighbor taking a shit and cleaning his ears. Apparently Justin had agreed to dog-sit for his friends as they vacationed abroad. The old, pale Huskie being a gentle and confiding soul has a habit of wandering off and meeting new people. It was silly of Justin to chase the dog inside through our wide open back door, but it was just one of those forgiveable split second decisions that we all make and regret for years after. I harbor no ill will towards Justin or towards the dog for that matter. Rather I thank them for starting my day off in the most humbling of circumstances. I thank them for balancing the scales of my ego. For reminding me that no matter what occurs , I'll never be truly alone. Comforting that.

As I hopped on my bike to finish the rest of a day that could only pale in comparison to its commencement, I passed by Justin walking the dog. I stopped to remind him that in some countries we'd be as good as married. I also asked him for a favor; that if anything were to happen to me today, if I were to be crushed by a truck or immobilized by a stroke that he would tell this story at my memorial. Exactly as it happened. Justin agreed to my request and I hurried along my way happy for no good goddamn reason other than that I had something to write about today.

A Letter In Progress

Dear Mrs. ________,

I am writing to you in regards to a matter of eight dollars and ninety-nine cents.

Recently I saw a candid photograph of you on the Internet. You were in a black suv standing up through the sunroof and surrounded by personal security. The photo was accompanied by a brief story describing the encounter. Your car was riding through Times Square and you were capturing the journey via a digital camera. The suv was outfitted with police-like warning sirens and was not obeying traffic laws.

In 1983 on the advice of a friend, Barbara Senatore I traveled to Camelot Music record shop in the Ocean County mall in Toms River New Jersey and bought your debut album. I enjoyed the various songs and became particularly fond of the title track Border____. It was soon after that I began to notice your high jinks on television and in the pages of magazines. I was like many of my generation charmed by your spunk and shenanigans. As a gay teen your messages of sexual freedom and possibility was encouraging and affirming. It fell on my welcoming ears and millions of people just like me, desperate to know that they were not alone in their ‘uniqueness’ found your presence comforting. You also acted as a queer catalyst. Millions of young gay men have you to thank for offering clarity regarding any ambiguous sexual feelings for members of the opposite sex. Your feminine sexual wiles landing on flaccid masses of dancing boys was proof enough that we were in fact all hopelessly gay. I for one can say that you helped to complete my homosexuality.

Within a year you had recorded a second album. It was widely publicized that your style and tastes had broadened and changed. In an attempt to keep abreast with your growth I purchased the Like A _____ album from the same music store in the same mall in my hometown. As MTV was not available in Toms River, a few friends and I traveled to a neighboring town to catch the debut of your new music video, Material _____. We made a real night of it and applauded all of your efforts. It was at this time that you became a media sensation. Hardly a newspaper or magazine was printed without some reference to you and the impact that you were having on American culture. I followed your career path, not so much obsessively but perhaps with a little too much interest for a young man who was preparing himself to enter college and join the grown up world.

You encouraged me to feel good that you were in the world. You told me that you were the voice of a new generation and I should regard you as a friend and peer. If you and I would try hard enough we would face the minefields laid out for the GLBT youth of the 80’s and we would prevail. God willing we we’re going to grow up together.

It was about this point that I became sexually active. I was engaging in homosexual sex not frequently but often enough to remind me of who I was. My fornicating was synchronized with the release of what I believe was your third record, True B____. Again I traveled to Camelot Music. Granted having intercourse seemed to have an equalizing affect on many aspects of my life (I was losing weight, mending troubled family relationships and doing well in school) but suddenly your message seemed tired and a bit pale. I felt as if somehow we had lost our edge and had fallen out of step. I was eager to follow up with you somehow and reconnect on this level but alas first semester of college was calling and we seemed to slip further and further from each other.

Like many first loves ours didn’t last to see my undergraduate commencement. I had been busy learning and developing a life’s plan for myself. And you, you little minx, you kept on dancing as fast as you could. As I became older we passed each other briefly as I scanned cable channels in between jobs throughout my twenties. I took moments here and there to read an article or two about a new controversy that you had stirred up or a movie that you had spoiled. I sometimes wondered when your eyebrows would reappear. And as I read I became more and more aware of how little you had changed. I was concerned for you. I felt that my abandoning you had hurt you and left you stuck in a vicious cycle. I wanted to be of some help to you so I started to pay a little more attention, to visit you more often. I was quickly troubled by what I noticed. In my absence you had developed a defeatist point of view about the world around us. It was clear by your tone that you had given up on us. You had convinced yourself that we were to be pandered to and patronized. You spoke to us from a high and mighty place. It upset me and made me angry. What we had built together so many years before was a thing of beauty and filled with promise and it seemed that you had decided that none of it ever mattered. That when you said on the Dick Clark Show that you wanted ‘to rule the universe’, it was you just joshing. Blowing off steam. I had believed you and was willing to do whatever it took to see that end through. You gave up on us. It was painful to watch and so I gave up on you.

For a good many years I did my best to avoid you. I would turn the other way as you passed me in an interview or from a billboard. I thought of you less and less and after a while it became easy to ignore you altogether. I began a new life with new possibilities and apparently you became a mother and wife. While never actively listened to your musings on life’s new meaning for you, I told myself to be glad for your new endeavors and your newfound spirit path. I was content to let my old love lay quietly as a keepsake and a memento from a long ago time that was filled with fractured, unfocused youthful energy.

But then just this week I saw your photo in the speeding car and it angered me. After all this time recognizing the God within the self. After years of struggle and success and giving new life up to the planet. After all these opportunities to grow up in every way possible you insist on playing the same juvenile role. Whereas I have had no choice but to take each defeat like a man and put aside hopes and dreams and fight to make it to the end of each month, you continue to flit about like a twinkle twat. Your race through Times Square drawing attention to yourself and the recording of it was an exercise in futility. You are Times Square. A neon confusion of sales. The camera must have recorded something akin to the image reflected when two mirrors are held up against each other. A bent and fading infinity. No doubt you let out a hollow ‘Whoo-hoooo” as your illegally outfitted automobile coursed through mid town congestion with no regard for safety of others or traffic laws. Well good for you.

Considering my present financial difficulties and the uncertainty of the course of my life I think it only right that you refund the cost of eight dollars and ninety-nine cents, the retail price of your album True B____. I take full responsibility for the purchase of the first two albums, but the third I bought on good faith that we had an understanding and a mutual respect. It may not seem like much to you but I could really use that money. Eight dollars and ninety-nine cents can be stretched a long way in a simple and adult life like mine. Unfortunately I no longer have the album or receipt as proof of purchase but considering our long history and the generosity I have shown you by faithfully waiting for you to catch up while holding my peace the entire time, I think that you should take my word for it. You have not lived up to your end of the bargain.

I do expect to hear from you in a timely fashion regarding this matter and I offer this advice in the meantime: please sit back in your seat and behave.

Warm Regards,

P.S. I have a screenplay or two that I would like you to consider reading. But please note that reading the scripts in no way is reparation for the aforementioned total of eight dollars and ninety-nine cents. It will cost me that much to have them mailed to you. They are heavy...Of course I am always available for a face to face meeting over lunch or let's say coffee. It would make getting the scripts to you that much easier. Once again I should note that if you buy lunch or coffee it is in no way reparation...It would be nice to catch-up in person.

Hush Now (don't explain)

This writing thing sucks. I can't bear the sound of myself or the sight of my own words linked together in my shit ass sentences. Rambling ambling shifting shiftless shit hauls of words lumped together like a cancer spreading across the page. My only sentence of consequence is the one that I'm living out here on earth in this place and time. It should serve as an example to all the kids out there who don't do their homework. There is no starting over.

Shitshitshit.

I don't want to say anything anymore. No more big little ideas in my marginal mind. I want to get back to the time honored system of toil and reward. I want to push my hands in without intellect or opinion and get to work. Intellect? What intellect? My brain is like an insect trapped, baking under a summer sun, drawn to the syrupy residue on the stick of a melted ice pop. And a cheap no frills ice pop at that. Writhing and kicking. Moving in place. My brain should never have stayed under the sun so long. Too much light. Observations? Observe my own foot going straight up my own ass thye next time I imagine that I've said or written anything useful. I know there's a typo in the previous shitass sentence, but I don't care! So I'll let it stand as a testament to my unpreparedness (not a word douche bag!) for the charitable attention of you fine readers. All none of you.

The only reason to write is to eventually run out of things to say and then shut the fuck up. Join the legions of grown up people who know better and quietly return to working, to doing. Isn't that the point? Or am I doing this all wrong too? Oh great! Another blunder. That's just terrific . One more thing fucked up. Why don't you write about that, fat boy? Why don't you snivel it across the page for the whole wide world to enjoy? Talk about your misstakes (not spelled correctly you cunting shit hole)and how you learn profound lessons from them. Anybody can do things right, but it takes a special person to face his failures. What a gift. What a blessing to be entrusted to spread the good word abroad like pox on the doorknobs of pre-schools. From one soul to the next until the virus....ahem...the truth of failure has found itself within every living breathing thing. You're failure is that unique. That special. Baloney.

Here, let me tell you about Piglet. Yes piglet, or at least the actor who portrayed the voice of piglet in the classic Disney films. When I was working in the Food Service Industry (and getting fucking paid!!!!) I had the good luck to find myself waiting on Piglet. I knew him on sight. He came in alone, sat down and got right to the business of ordering. "Vvveal Mmarsala" I think. As I took his menu I somehow summoned up the courage to announce to him that I knew who he was and had appreciated his work for many years! Piglet could not have given a shit, even if shit was spilling outta his fuckin pockets. Piglet shined me on. He looked at me blankly. He looked through my soul. Like a bald thin newly hatched little bird of ill omen staring from a nest of conceit and righteous indignation he forced himself to almost imperceptibly nod his frail head not so much in recognition but in dismissal. Piglet knew that I was desperate for attention and validation and he/it was having none of me. Piglet simply wanted his bread basket.

He was right. Piglet should have just said 'shoo'. Piglet should have picked up his chair and bbbbludgeoned me with it. He should have cracked my skull wide open. In one seemingly disarming, sweet and smiling sentence I had unloaded a lifetime of crap onto piglet's plate. It bordered obscene. I was wrong to expect anything from Piglet. Emotional or otherwise. I was there to do, to perform a task. Not talk. Not to think. Piglet was obliged to help me find my path again.

Somehow I had forgotten Piglet's lesson and slowly started to think and remember again. To what end? For who's benefit? Mine? What truly benefits me is a timely schedule of daily meals. If I can't afford groceries I certainly can't afford to think and remember. Memory and thought are expensive. They waste time, and time is money and I aint got no money honey so I aint got no time for thought. And I sure as hell aint got no time for memory.. I want to get paid

Waiters wait. Writers write. The rest is all just pushing and shoving.

(drumroll...)And one more thing poorly finished (cymbal crash, general fanfare).