end of an era

today is the sy guy's last day. he is moving to another town. the sy guy once dressed up as a police officer, an easter bunny, and as santa claus. today, he is wearing a tux. he has a seven average in history. he thinks is better than everybody else. once, after i gave him a pat on the back, he said "don't touch me!" he can't read, but he won't let you read to him. he always says that the print is too small for him, but when you blow up the page for him, he still can't read it. he claims he needs the book on tape, and when you get it to him, he falls asleep. he claims he needs a computer, but when you give him one, he doesn't use it. he fails everytime, but his mom won't let him take the easier classes. she is in denial, claims that his problem is that "he is lazy." so, he soldiers on, the stupid snob, without support, alone, as, i suppose, we all are. today, we are having a party for him. there will be pizza, the people's choice for food. perhaps the sy guy will cry. maybe it will hit him that it is over, that life may not ever be as good again. failure in school is a gentle joke, but, in life, it can be death.

bye sy guy.

old jokes come back to me for some reason at this moment.

"your pants are like a cheap hotel...no ballroom!"
"what did the elephant say after being pulled out of the water by the balls? thank you, mr. and mrs. ball"

and old comments, statements, too.

my dad, after a bodacious beauty hurried by..."you don't mature, you just get older." a professor, talking about the reaction in his neighborhood to the rosenberg executions..."they were out on the streets, cheering. and, they weren't celebrating because they were communists." the same teacher, talking about racism..."i remember these old guys, sitting around the bar, saying "you know hitler had the right idea. but, he wasn't talking about the jews."

then, there was the old japanese guy talking about his experiences in an internment camp.

memories of lovely ladies and manly men, strutting from class to class at umass, thinking it meant something. in a way, it did, for never again would you sit around with others and discuss books, and not be seen as a weirdo for it.

sy guy's party coming to an end. i stuffed myself on pizza, cookies, chips, cupcakes, and other instruments of death. someone gave him a david ortiz book. well, he can look at the pictures anyway. p from copy center came by, a male ethel merman, without the pipes. other jerk offs were present too, but it beats working.

doesn't everything?

sy guy, you won't be replaced. none of us will.

today

almost all the students failed their science midterm, but as woody pointed out, "science is a dead end." woody only believed in sex and death. this whole thing is a joke without a punch line. school is shit stuck in a toilet that won't flush. the kids were bummed. they pouted over the pointless thing. there were the obligatory threats. "you guys have to get your act together...i expect you here after school until your grades improve." how are they supposed to masterbate under such conditions? leave these fuckers alone! but no, we won't be satisfied until we make them miserable replicas of ourselves. we were forced to memorize a lot of bogus bullshit, so let them stuff their brains with the same fare. but...it ain't fair. we are taking their time, can we at least let them keep their minds?

no, our culture wants it all. our culture will fill their heads with bad music, bad movies, bad education, because it knows no other way. we are deaf to our critics. they have been killed or made crazy, and we are left with what remains. as bukowski said "'I would like to be human if they would only let me."

confession: ate at wendy's today. got fries, a sandwich, and a frosty, all for $3.50. the cost of the heart attack will come later.

at work today it all seemed like a bad joke. kids coming and going, teachers bitching about the students and each other, an aide noticing my book and exclaiming "i love bukowski!" the teacher saying "he never heard of him" kids upset about their grades. and then, there is p from copy center. at school, he carries on like a flaming queer, high pitched, strutting like some down and out diva, but when i saw him downtown, his voice was deep as he said "hello." the man is a pain in the ass, a snob, a bore, who entertains himself by trying to bring others down. look fuckhead, you make copies! so just take out your judy garland record, (hey, i like judy too) lose the attitude, and shut the fuck up.

speaking of homosexuals, i am tired of the obviously gay guy who keeps pretending he loves the ladies, talking about how this one is hot and that one is cute and how he has to get that one's number. we all know you are gay, and it's ok. if you can't admit it to us, the decent ones, what chance do you have of ever leading an honest life? so for once, get out of the closet, and get into the bedroom.

getting tired of these fuckers who don't feel cold. shit, it's ten degrees, and this guy is practically parading down the street in nothing but his shorts. since when did wearing pants become a felony? i notice alot of people are under dressing these days. our youth for example. look asshole, i don't need to see your scarface shirt, (which by the way is as long as a dress) so zip up that coat. gays under dress too, with those little zip up shirts which never come down over their pants. ok, you have a nice butt, what do you want me to do about it? why did i ask that? also, they wear those faded jeans, and walk too fast. slow down! and white guys. what is it with these guys? it's zero degrees outside and these guys are getting arrested for indecent exposure. are jackets legal in white america? and women too. ok, i know they want us to see their bodies, but shit!!

it's cold out there! doesn't anyone else feel it??

at least the whole queer eye for the straight guy thing has died down. i have a title for a show. it's called "queer lick for the straight dick." that should get them out there protesting.

believe me, i'm not angry at the moment. i'm just using old material that was left in the can. hey, it's not as good as a tina brooks record, but it will have to do.

until the real thing comes along. for now, the stormy weather is coming. let it rainn, wilson. it's good for the farmers.

by the way, i thought art blew the johnny most. perhaps that line wasn't worth jack bruce shit, but i've already typed it. so eric, i hope you will clap-a-ton after you read it. if not, i will cream you.
ah, nothing beatles a good blog, but how wood i know, nick? ah, the puns came back in the nick of time. they tell me that martha is the root of all evil, but i would rather dance in a street of quicksand during a heat wave with jimmy mac, than accept a socialist alternative. yeah, she needed nikes because her feet were sensitive. perhaps that was why we gave her the boot? well, she wasn't as bad as james herr. herr can touch a tree and turn the leaves to flame, the no good arsonist. rebecca kaim home in the middle of all this. in fact, she came on the bed and i had to wash the ben sheets. well, i've ben there, t.r. dunn that.

till mike gold falls from the sky,

a jew without money,

along with gordon jenkins,

says goodbye

walking

walking down comm ave, the girls of boston university surround me. they are a satisfied bunch, considering the world is saturated with sadness. they have a sameness to them. they are all white, regardless of their race. they are wealthy, well fed, ravishing robots. i quicken my pace, but they are everywhere. it's not their fault that they are robots, but they bother still. i want to shout. they hurry by, chatting on cell phones. the streets belong to them. they nudge you out of the way. no one has ever told them no. they have everything, except happiness. they know it all, except the truth. i wonder, where are all the men? don't young men go to school too? don't they walk down streets too? of course, they are also hateful in their generic white t shirts and their dockers and their bum look that costs hundreds. these are our good germans, busy fighting their battles, whatever they are. they are studying for tests, falling in love, talking, walking.

was i that hateful?

class today. kids were telling me how to teach the class, how to make it interesting. one of these days they will learn that it's all bullshit anyway. i tell them that i am thinking of coming to class in a bathing suit to liven things up. or maybe i will hire a chorus line. i tell a joke, which really happened. i was standing on a platform waiting for the train when a kid comes by and says "hey man, i like your boots. are they timberlands?" i pull my pant leg up over the label of the boot, read it, and then say "tomberlinds." the hipster looks away, somewhat thrown, as he has already admitted to liking a "bootleg" product. by the way, i got them at payless for 20 bucks. i shouldn't brag, they were probably made by some 12 year old girl in vietnam. i wonder what ho chi minh would be thinking now?

i just ordered fidel's autobiography from the library. the only problem is i already have 10 books out. well, i guess that doesn't rank high on a list of tragedies.

it is weird being in front of high school students, as a "teacher." what is there to teach? follow your heart, find a passion, and shit on the sacred cows. what else can i tell you? more and more i go through the motions. what the hell, the kids are cool and it's good pocket change. besides, they seem to think i'm ok.

maybe they are right

i hope so

i'm tired

i'm tired

i'm tired of white girls
who curl their hair
and black girls
who straighten theirs
i'm tired of asians
who get surgery on their eyes
in a real life imitation
of a twilight zone
i'm tired of punks in army planes
who burn people with bombs
because their country called
and i'm tired of the fantasy world
known as reality tv
i'm tired of the worries that come
from working and the worries that come
from looking for work when you don't have it
i'm tired of bad music
buble and botti both
and all the bastards who buy their recordings
i'm tired of flat screen tv's, cell phones, cable, computers
and i'm tired of people driving their cars to a destination
that leads nowhere
i'm tired of getting up every morning
when both my body and brain
shout for sleep
i'm tired of paying rent to lords who have no right to the land
and i'm tired of water bills
in a world that is 3/4 water
i'm tired of the ceaseless search
the posturing, the playing at power
and all the small talk
i'm tired of conversation
i'm tired of saying hi
i'm tired of people saying my name but
i'm tired of quiet also
i'm tired of the crowds
but i don't want to be alone either
i'm tired of it all
but thirsty for more
i'm tired, and i'm sure you are as well
of this poem
peace

but, not yet. one of these days, we will sing. the song will flow out, the words will ring clear out of this world, and somewhere, sammy will say "good evening" but only pinko and i will smile. and from above, or below, dean gets drunk on tap water, and sinatra tells his amos and andy jokes between songs. right now, somewhere far from the hell that is our earth, jackie wilson spins, coltrane attempts, perhaps in vain, to speak to god through his music, and ike quebec has the time to make all the bossa records he wants. somewhere, eric dolphy makes a living, and martin and malcolm debate the necessity of non-violence. in the superior surroundings of my imagination, wardell grey floats above a trio and not in a river. in a better place, sam cooke doesn't face death for fucking a white woman, paul robeson is not drugged by the cia, and hemingway is not spied on by the fbi. i think i would kill for such a world, but i wouldn't know where to start. perhaps that's where suicide comes in; you want to kill so you start with yourself. the tragedy is that in our fucked, perverted world, we lose the good ones, while others get corrupted and see their idealism wither as they mature into nothingness. perhaps when literal bombs (we don't seem to be able to pick up on the figurative ones) are falling on our faces, we will realize that all is far from fine. but, by then, of course, it will be too late.

as, i'm sure you know, it already is.

so, eat and drink up. find a diversion of your choice. cover your eyes and claim blindness because the crimes of our existence are too compelling. so, we choose ignorance, indifference, apathy. we cry and complain about the wrong things, the shallow things, the meaningless things, the bullshit, who deserved to win american idol, whether the refs called the game right, who has the better body blah blah blah. such shit doesn't satisfy, it doesn't even make you snicker.

we are all fucked

have a nice day.

record

record
lp
33 1/3
wax
platter
vinyl
you are a little more effort
than the forms of listening
that followed
sometimes you
scratch
but
you satisfy
sensationally
so much of the time
you are worth the effort
i clean you
i watch you
spin around the turntable
i read your notes
and look at your cover
and finally
when i am finished
i file you away
yes, you take up space
but so do clothes
and food
and the house
you live in
but, of course
the inventions continued
first, the cd
which is good
in its way
it's smaller
more compact (no pun intended)
and all the music
is on one side
but, it is a little
less human
and a little
more like
a machine
you don't see them
spinning around
and they don't scratch
they skip
creating a sound
that is
merely silly
but eventually i built
a collection of compact discs
they didn't replace my records
but they did help me
get hip to mobley
and quebec
and sonny clark
and so many others
hundreds of cd's later
they have created the ipod
now, they have eliminated
the element of space
entirely
all effort has been erased
now, we are enclosed
within pristine, headphoned walls
the people no longer browse in record shops
they no longer leave the house and
engage the earth
they no longer rap about
various recordings with their
fellow fanatics
they no longer linger and learn from others
like themselves, who have skipped food
for that fantastic feeling
that only fine music can bring
they have eliminated
the hassle
that is humanity
that is the multiplicity
of man and woman
and replaced it
with the pornographic essentials
of penis and pussy
progress my ass
i'll take the feeling of pleasure
that comes from obsolete things
i'll continue to carry on
the rapture that is
listening to
records

to those who consider themselves rebels

there are those who think they are sticking it to the man. but always, the one they are sticking it to is not the man, or if he is, he is the man with a small m. like the guy in the chinese restaurant who refused to serve me, and the other one who wanted to charge me 35 cents for duck sauce, or the mexican guy who still gave me my food to go even though i said "for here" twice. then there were the black kids who asked me where i lived, and the latino kid who asked me if i was puerto rican. i replied "am i supposed to be? and he said "yeah" so i said "yes, i'm puerto rican." he let me pass. there were the other kids who would run me out of the parks and those who asked me why i was walking through "their" park. my answer was that i worked at the high school the park led to. luckily, this satisfied them.

these are the modern race rebels. they haven't done a thing to alter the positions of those power. they know little of institutional oppression, as those same white supremacist institutions have already oppressed them. they choose their opponents wisely. they never victimize ceo's, heads of state, slum lords. they think they are rebels, but they are really the new toms, posturing, playing at power. the only whites they strike out at are the poor, the winos, the ones without suits, the long hairs. of course, they have every right to be angry, but they take their anger out in a cowardly way, on those without the cannons, on those who have committed comparably minor crimes. to the others, the administrators, the teachers, the preachers, the home owners, the employers, they tom.

their bullshit has become a bore. they are not race rebels, but rather, each one is a reactionary. they condemn only those whites victimized by class, and not those who most fully capitalize on their victimization.

now, i know that white supremacy and institutionalized racism are crimes that dwarf this crime that i am currently writing about, but it gets to the point when stupidity in all of its shades no longer satisfies.

my message? if you want to stick it to the man, please, go ahead. it is something that needs to be done.

but, do it for real. cut the crap, and fight for a credible cause.

you heard it here, from me, a bookish, jewish, arm chair commie nerd, who has never starved, been beaten by the police, or called an n every day of his life, whether literally or figuratively, by a racist, genocidal, culture.

i think that gives my words some credibility.

a brain on fire

i am reading like my time on earth is limited, which, of course, it is. i just stole time from my gig to walk to the library. celine and henry miller are in each hand. today, my bag will be heavy with words, and i am free from school. no one tells me what to read anymore. no one grades me. no one calls me to answer questions in classes that call for large cups of coffee. now, i choose what i read. i used to think i wanted to be something. but then it hit me that i already am something...me. no career can alter an essence. fortunately, it hit me that it's all bullshit, and while knowing the deal doesn't pay the bills, it has its own reward.
at one point, i was going to be a teacher. let me tell you, you can not find a more mediocre collection of people. our educators are in need of knowledge. the last thing they should have are students. in fact, there is nothing to teach. it is up to the individual to find his own path and pursue it. school clutters the path, creates academic niches which divert from fundamental understandings. as far as i know, you can not major in american genocide.
yes, you can become a craftsman. you can learn skills, memorize facts. but the real thing must come from you. you must be pulled by passion, managed by your own, unique mania. no one can teach you who you are, and who you are will determine what you want to learn. in order to follow your own path, you must be independent. you must be in a position to call the shots, to stop reading if you want, to switch albums in mid song, to walk down the street reading as the cars side step your distracted gate. sitting in a class as a passive participant, being fed finals as you pay the price, is not the way. it has its merits, and beats working. you can learn things that way, but the real thing comes from the search made from deep within your personal solitude.

start with a walk on a nice day to your local library, and a list of things that interest you. there will be no interest rates, you won't go bankrupt, and there will be no one grading you.

best of all, you will be in charge.

imagine that.

silberg apologizes

"now i've done it. i wrote a poem. what next? a painting, with shit in place of paint? of course, much of what mellish writes is not much better, but this is not about him. i take full responsibility for my annoying actions. if i have hurt anyone, i am deeply sorry. i never meant to bother, just to inform, but it appears my ego out ran me. despite my current pathetic state, i assure you that i will do better."

silberg was really on fire yesterday. fortunately, the fire department responded promptly to my call, and defused the situation. richard pryor to the fire, he spoke of many things, fools and kings, and this he said to me. the greatest thing you will ever learn, is just to love, and be loved, in return. my, silberg, certainly has a rick "nature boy" flair for making compelling remarks. he then began to speak of his travels by ricky steamboat. we wrestled with the topic for a while. it was a best of three falls, which he won, because his second fall came from a fourth floor window into the soul. the conversation ran on, and it was all we could do to catch up with it. finally, it escaped, so if you see some anarchist ideas and flowery language running down an inner city street, let me know.

was sitting on the train when a little slice of heaven came from out of nowhere. in fact, you came to me from out of nowhere, but why sing the same old tune? in any case, a young man and woman were talking when the woman took out her ipod. the guy said "i hate ipods. ipods suck. i'm sticking with my cd's." if he had only said he was sticking with his albums. well, you can't get too greedy i suppose. for a second, i had to make sure that i was not speaking involuntarily.

you know how it is when you try not to buy things. you hold out. you don't buy the cell phone, the computer, whatever. and then, someone goes and gets it for you! than you have to use it...it was a gift! what are you going to do, throw it out? then you would be an ungrateful prick, which you are, but that it is a secret you try to keep to yourself. so, there you go. you are a member of team modernity again. you stick that cell phone to your ear, and you join the club. what choice did you have, when you can't swim against the tide any longer, and you are drowning on dry land.

no one has given me a cell phone yet.

maybe there is a god.

thoughts

poverty wears on whites. have you noticed? if you pass a housing project, the latino and black ladies will be shapely and alive. for sure, they are hurting too, but it doesn't hurt us as much to look at them. the white women though, will be withered and worn. what is it? perhaps too many told them in their youth that to be human, you must first make money. and when they didn't, it killed their spark. or maybe it's just that their bodies weren't built for a burger king diet.

i am finding that you don't read bukowski, you feast on him. you grow fat on his literary offerings, but you hunger still, until his next book arrives at the branch library. you read his books the way you listen to a lovely melody. it is not so much a book as an experience. in college, his name was never uttered, except for a pompous student who asked a teacher if he had heard of him. but as i've always said, school takes time away from education. and brother, am i learning now.

saw silberg this afternoon. he read me a poem entitled "america"

america

by

alan silberg

america, you have murdered your masters
you have turned art into entertainment
and entertainment into trash
america, you hung jackie wilson
out a window
and set sam cooke up
with a prostitute
you left wardell gray
ravaged in a river
and sent eric dolphy
to europe
his reason?
respect
something you have never given
your murdered masters
america, you have terrorized your talent
you mutilated malcolm
after he left the black muslims
and before
he could move the masses
america, you drove lenny mad
and sent abbie down a road
to nowhere
america you have fucked and finished your finest
you buried fred hampton in a bed of bullets
and have bombed boys
and girls
and men
and women
america, you have crushed countries
with your burning bombs
and your nasty napalm
america, you robbed us of robeson
and you wronged
richard wright
fuck you america
with your atom bomb
and your thousands of others bombs
you bully
you beast
america, you have murdered your masters
and made slaves
of us all.

idea for a speech at a funeral and other musings

a man dies. people mourn. a guy gets up and makes a speech.

"that chuck, he was a fun guy. and now, he will be eaten by fungi. i tell you, that man was determined. he kept his ion the prize. he knew that life was a sweet science. some people didn't know him from atom, but for those who knew him, he was a special man. we will miss him. i remember once, he gave me some change when i asked for it. he didn't have to, but he did anyway. chuck always looked both ways before crossing the paul street. he traveled down the boulevard of broken dreams. chuck was a loner who made his own tracks. in fact, he produced his own albums. smokey robinson said it was a miracle that he lived as long as he did, but i think he was just blowing smokin joe frazier, which is a good blow job if you can get it, and you can get it if you try. you gersh-win some and you lose some.
chuck was a god fearing man. he refused to enter church as an adult, claiming to be afraid of it. chuck, while a firm believer, (he kept himself in great shape, kind of like a hexagon) often questioned the faith hill. once while reading a blog (not the mellish blog) he came upon a line which read "thank god i am cancer free." chuck, in a moment of doubt, wondered "if you are going to thank god for curing you, who are you going to blame for making you sick in the first place?" such thoughts kept chuck out of the good theology schools. chuck was a swinger. he would only buy his food at shaw's. he was a goodman. he rarely blew his own horn, as his was usually in the pawn shop. the man was a great lou reid player, and once made a stevie wonder-ful recording of blue velvet, that was notorious and b.i.g. with the underground crowd. eventually he was railroaded by the austin powers that be. he became depressed, and spent a lot of time in the tub, man, singing "swing low sweet harriot."
and now, chuck is gone, gone gone. he gave it his porgy and bess shot, but the miles of his journey were long, and the road kai winding. eventually, the spain became too much, and his memory grew sketchy. he was no longer miles ahead of the rest. he began to live a lush life, as he drank away many a night and day in order to not feel cole. but by then, his song had been sung, and his angel eyes finally closed last thursday. so we are here now. what's new? just another funeral, but it's a lonesome old town now, as the willow weeps for me, and for all of us. for chuck is gone with the wind, and while spring is here, it feels like winters, as we have become a shelley of our former selves. i guess i'll hang my tears out to dry and sing the blues in the night, as i pour a drink on this night, which is for only the lonely.

a toast for you chuck. make it one for my baby, and one more for the edward abbey road. to be frank chuck, you were the best. enjoy your rest in the mother earth. you were goldman, gold. emma go somewhere else now, fot i've got the jones to split, so pass me a hankie so i can cannonball my eyes out.

bye."

idea for a show

you know how the old doo wop guys get together and do those revival shows on pbs? well, in the future, they are gonna do one for the hip hop guys. can't you see it? the female dancers, in their thongs, now 80 years old. remember, you have to do it exactly like the original video, and that includes the same dancers and the same thongs. and, the best part, the same rappers in the same clothes. i can see 50 cent now, with his walking stick. and there's jay z, wobbling around, struggling to get all the words out. and there in the crowd are all the old people, wearing their vintage hip hop gere. even richard will be there. they will be waving their arms and sticking their fingers in all directions. kanye wll shout about how happy he is to be in toledo. old pimps and "gangstas" will be taking calls, accepting your pledges. we will get misty eyed as we remember the grand old days of commercial, watered down, sexist, homophobic rap. dead pres and most def will not be asked to come on the show, for fear that they may say something of merit. perhaps one of them would have spoken out against our bombing of peru, which will have been going on for four years at the time of this concert.

now, this is a show i would watch. old rappers, wearing the same clothes, doing the same songs, with the same dancers. makes you salivate, doesn't it? with thoughts like this, i don't even mind growing old.

i can't wait to see what eminem looks like.

i keep working my way, and now, the end is near.

i try to put a positive spinners on things, and then came you with your negativity. whatever, i'll be around, regardless of what you do.

back at work. it's better than being homeless...i think. by the way, how does a wallet empty so quickly? what am i buying? someone must be sneaking into my house, (eddie perhaps) and only taking the money. as long as they don't touch the cd's.

you ever notice how a grocery store or supermarket will have one cute girl who works there? it's always one, never two. is this a plan. when they hire, do they say (whoever they are) "ok, gotta get a looker in here, or no one is gonna get their milk from us." sometimes, this girl is 15. that makes you feel like an asshole for even noticing that she's cute. as if you didn't have enough to feel bad about.

i know it's all bull, but i keep trying to find meaning in something, you know? i buy this, i buy that. a new cd, a book, a movie. all good stuff, but not the solution. everything costs money, except the important things. this from a guy with over 300 cd's, and dozens of books. the closest i'll ever get to a monk is when i play one.

been eating a lot lately. talk about fools gold, that's worse than the other habits. ahh, man's search for meaning in a godless universe.

switching richard gere's, i drank some jack lemmon juice last night, here comes the brevin knight, the only time i'm not without you. i had lemmon juice, than oj, an odd couple, but it felt like i hit a homer simpson after drinking them.

all the kids, including jason, failed the science test that i wrote about last week. their performance was weak. i don't mean to come on strong, but it was bad. the thing is, if everyone fails at anything, i think it's time to look at who is giving the test, and the test itself. say you go into a city and no one can find work. at that point, you can't blame the people anymore, it's the system. the individual is trapped in a terrible tragedy. it goes by the name of america.

flowers are nice, but i can't fight the feeling that they belong in the earth. like oil. we plunder and pollute, so the populace can live pain free, but the pain will eventually come. in the long run, the race will be lost. in the meanwhile, the cars will crowd the streets, flowers will furnish our tables, and diamonds will dazzle all of us. and when death brings its devastation, denial will not delay the destruction. well, at least we will have filled up the time with tedious trinkets.

i have been in a detached sleep walk for a while now. and this is the prime of my life! you know, you want to live, you want to feel, see, touch, smell, everything of note. instead, we settle for shit. we get a hint of the real, a glimpse of the genuine, but in general, greatness eludes us at every turn. we are too busy surviving, and we can not surpass the surreal that is our fate. so, we cope. we put on the stereo, turn on the tv, take a walk, have sex. occasionally, we reach a state of wonder, but in the main, we are murdered by mediocrity. we are blind, fumbling in the dark, unable to find the light switch. at times, the light shines...mingus plays his bass, fellini directs, a dog licks your hand. and then, quickly, it is dark again, and we go back to feeling around, in the hope that we will again locate the switch. sadly, most of us don't even know where the switch is. this guarantees an eternity of darkness. find the light, my friend, wherever it is to be found.

as sinatra said "i'm for anything that gets you through the night." even gladys. sinatra compared belief in god to drinking jack daniels. dolly must have been proud. my dad quoted sinatra for his paper in high school that argued against mandatory school prayer in public schools. the paper got a d. teacher must have been a perry como guy. i'm waiting for some philosophical musings from our current stars. haven't heard anything yet. no, jolie adopting half of africa doesn't count, basie. until she joins the iraqi resistance, i don't want to hear about her. some may get their jolie's off looking at her, but i would dan rather eat halle berries and mariah carey on in my own helen way, for i am keeping it on the j lo, which is the marc anthony of maturity. for remember, the sean penn is mightier than the sword. if you had a george clooney, you wood know that, nick. at night, while you sit on the elton john, perhaps you will realize what shit it all is.

until then, swing for the fences. and to hell with bill gates.

sitting here blogging

at the brookline public library (are there any private ones? at least they don't call it the "free" library. what, are there ones that charge? language can really drive you mad) blogging. does it help? it must, because i'm doing it, but i think screaming at the top of my lungs would be better. i used to do that in school, just yell "fuck" as loud as i could. the detention was always worth it. now, i'm an adult, so i control myself. i used to sing outside too. pinko remembers when we would walk down the street and i would hit high notes from old show tunes. sammy davis on the common. what kind of fool am i? not a common one. now, my finger screams, as it smashes down on the keys. i yearn to hit another high note, but all i hear is the sound of silence. you know, they say we must graduate into maturity, but the whole thing just makes me simon. where is my current release from the madness of the everyday? what can i turn to now that i no longer sing who can i turn to? people used to laugh at me, (not with me, as half assed administrators often pointed out) now they ask me if i can help them solve a math problem. i want to tell them there is no solution, but they wouldn't understand. and yet, there is the other side of me, which blushes at how melodramatic i am becoming. but that doesn't seem to stop the surge toward sadness. and when in these moods, i tend to compound the feelings by playing "after the rain" or "one for my baby." maybe this feeling is actually happiness? often i feel pushed toward a state of slight depression, as if it were a glove i must wear for warmth. it does fit, that much i can say.
is the blog helping? well, it's hurting less than other things. for the moment, that is enough. it has to be.

i am now going to get up and try to force myself to be happy. for the moment, i feel like someone resigning themselves to a rape. hopefully that will change soon.

go chargers.

blah

slept till 11:30, but i still feel tired. somehow, i always feel tired. it's the weekend, but more and more it seems that life is one long job. i should be happy, for my problems, if there are any, are shallow. why do i feel tired? i'm 28, in decent health as far as i know. i'm in a good relationship, live in a pretty good neighborhood, have good parents, and pinko also. so, why this feeling? i can't blame it on poverty. it's not that profound. and i'm not weary due to the war either. those terrible tragedies induce deeper feelings in me. this feeling is blander, not overwhelming but a burden always. perhaps it is the cost of being human in our age.
or, maybe i should just shut the fuck up, get off my ass, and live. but, how is that done?

n, your reaction was human yesterday. you felt anger, frustration, depression, feelings that school can not teach. you induced laughter and joy with your outburst, also feelings beyond what the school can give. what happened was human. for a moment, you mobilized your humanity against the machine and threw yourself against the overwhelming odds. eventually, you lost, but in that moment, you were a winner, because you breathed the air of self expression and truth. you went beyond the confines, reached out for that something beyond the walls of your imprisonment. for a second, you were free.

let us all "fucking piss on the police," and all other institutional figures. let us learn from the prophets. if you listen closely, and are not held back by tradition and fear, you just might hear them.

fine and dandy

history class today; the women's movement. women fighting for the right to vote for the same boring stiffs that men had been voting for before. "women" doesn't seem to include black women, or native women. i guess we are supposed to know that women means white.
science test today. 6 pages of nonsense. a or f, (excuse me, e) what does it mean? how much crap can a teen brain store? the info itself has a certain degree of significance, but it's taught in such a way as to eliminate whatever importance it may have. the "good"student memorizes the info long enough to get a good grade on the test. the "bad" student doesn't memorize it long enough to do this, or never stores the info at all. the difference? there is none, but the first will be praised and held up as a role model, and the latter will be denigrated as a failure. the whole thing fails to stir anything in me. i'm not paying attention in science anymore, so i can't help the students. besides, one of them keeps referring to me as a predator, so screw them as a collective unit. let them fail with a smile. alas, they will probably get down and curse quietly, as they bemoan the unfairness of it all. innocent ones. yes, school is annoying, but when they enter the adult world of wage slavery (and sadly, several of them already have) they will really be up against it. their life stinks, but it doesn't quite suck yet. a fine distinction, but a distinction of import. the teenager still has a degree of imdividuality, of independence. money is not as integral to their existence. our commercial culture has eliminated this to an extent, but adults are still fucked more. their toys are bigger. a kid and his jordan's isn't quite as bad as some fuckhead bragging about his house and car. it's the same disease, but by the time it reaches the adult stage, it is a hopeless case. there is no cure for the crime of being a citizen of commercial culture.
so, i work with the steve young. it's better than giving up and moving to joe montana, cause i ain't no 49er, and i know the search for gold ain't solid. so, i settle for bronze. i don't want a medal anyway. i just want to be left alone. i want classic jazz on the turntable, and my space heater by the bed. i want the phone silent, and the tv off. an occasional drink too, and good food. a book as well. and my woman. and my friend, color me pinko. and the parents. i guess i have more needs than i thought. when you list them they add up. but certain things i resist. cell phones cable cars computers. i'm not all bad i suppose.

drama in class at the moment. n, the oldies expert, is angry. it has been exposed that his father is doing his homework. an exchange followed, in which n said that "he would piss on his teachers." he was then told to write a report to his dean explaining what happened. he wrote "when i am arrested by the police i will fucking piss on them!" the students found out and exploded in laughter. n is in trouble now. but he got his licks in. good for him. in the end, he will lose of course. he will apologize and he will feel bad. he may even cry.

don't cry n. other than knowing what year lonely teardrops came out in, saying you will "fucking piss on the police" is the best thing you have done this school year. i suppose it's clear by now that i chart success differently than most educators.

bravo n.

and cinemax, hbo, showtime. the whole package. you put on quite a show. that's what a good work day needs. a little entertainment. fuck the tests...give me the show.

gibberish

back at work. it's ok...i guess. i'd rather be sleeping, but that doesn't pay in cash, johnny. i've been talking to coworkers today a little more than usual. complaints fly like birds up in the sky. everyone is angry, and always at the wrong things, for it would take courage and wisdom to be angry at the real crimes. so, we settle for bull sessions. "i don't get paid shit, i've been here 9 years, i've got three degrees, and they weren't that good a group blah blah blah" these conversations are worse than worthless, but they do kill time. the fact is, none of us are doing anything of value. the whole thing is bullshit, but instead of bitching about the general picture, we go nuts over the particulars. pissed over the particulars, while we ignore the big picture. this allows us to get up and pretend that we are doing something of value, when the fact is that none of this has value. it's shit, shit, shit. period. i'm in it for the check, just like everyone else. the check is the value, all else is fakery. school is shit. the kids are ok, but the institution? shit. it stands for nothing good. when ignored, it becomes tolerable. the children and i create alternative worlds within the walls, at times making the whole thing almost ok. but, these are merely stop gaps, plan b's that don't change the fundamentals. the fundamental is we are fucked, finished, the fight in us finally forced out of us by the powerful and their institutions of control. we cope with books, jokes, music, sports, sex. and shortly, the next war begins, and another guy has his guts beaten in and sent to his grave by our generals.
as i write this, kids sit in the room with me, talking about how "they can't wait to get the jordan's that come out on saturday." they are gonna cost 300 dollars. i don't even think my feet are worth 300 dollars, much less the shues, gene. such banalities fly amongst our youth. they are caught, trapped in the latest trends, their money flying away in a useless attempt to find meaning through consumerism. in a few years, it will be cars. for now, it's shoes. bullshit either way. grown up bull is no better than childish bull. the game is always the same, only the toys change. maybe one day we will change the rules, perhaps even get rid of the game itself? one day, maybe we will actually wear our shoes out and not throw them away until they are filled with holes. then, we will have peace.
hell, it ain't that bad. can't i tell a tale without presenting it as high tragedy? the students are great, my coworkers decent people, the hours good. it shouldn't feel like hell, but somehow, it still does. sometimes, in this hardy life, i just want to rest on my laurels, for i tello you this, the cost to me is vast. but, i need the j silver, and in this horace race known as life, if i don't get my hands on some grants like horace, i'm dead, and not grateful, i'll tell you that. mann, horace, education can not be reformed. we can not vivian ad-vance under these conditions, which are by no means mint. in truth, we are playing out the string, and since sinatra has the world on this same string, we need to be gentle with it. i am a gentle mann, unlike thomas, who got knicked up walking the streets of new york by a piece of wood that eddie floyd knocked. and now, in this motown known as every city, stax of problems await, and i still have things i need to get off my chess. my solution? to sit down by the riverside and sing blue notes, as i resent the prestige of talentless others who have taken us to the brink of destruction. i am a contemporary of many of these men, and while i don't want to be pacific, some of them are even more bothersome than billy ocean.
what is a poor boy to do but pour a drink and eat a candy bar at a bar? emptiness dominates. my cup doesn't fill. how many bad puns can i tell? who wants to hear that i traded in my vicki carr for a gerald ford? what kind of a helen way is this for me to spend my time. helen reddy or not, i am not a woman, and i would be lion if i said you could hear me roar. i am running out of faith. the lauryn hills are getting harder for me to climb every mountain, follow every rainbow store until you get a good deal on a pair of pants. i had to tello that joke. i can't help myself, i kneed you and nobody else. and it took the air out of you, so someone else got the fortune, sonny. you will have to settle for the trees, rollins, and the rivers, glenn.
this is madness.
when will it end?

now.

actually it won't.

now it will, after i call my lawyer, but he must get out of ty law school first. it was a ty whether he would get a law degree or a medical degree, and since he realized he couldn't be as good a wrapper as dr. dre, who he had worked with at a hallmark store, he went into law. he will help me make out my will, when i get the will to do it.
now i'm done...t.r. dunn.
i couldn't help that last nugget, which was better than anything john denver ever said. well, he went elway and i went mine, and now i will go to the john before i prostitute my art any further.

i'm gonna put monk on the stereo.

bye ya.

today

took a day off from work. i only wish i could take a life off from work. i slept late, till about 12:30. awoke only because the dreams were getting too weird. got up, watched the basie band on a dvd. pretty good, although a female singer kind of bothered me, and then a drum feature. fuck drum features. great band though. finally decided i couldn't lie around any longer. must have been the puritan in me. man, i wish i could shake him once and for all. well, he keeps me from being out on the street, i'll give him that. decided to ketchup on some music. started with an earl hines record, with budd johnson on tenor. man, those old dudes could wail. then i listened to a randy weston disc with cecil payne. i played it because i thought it might be expendable. 10 seconds in, i realized it wasn't. ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. not the most original meal, johnny, but i'm no chef, so you do what you have to.

now, i'm at the library writing this. you know, my job ain't that bad, but it would be nice to like it, you know? i mean, like i like hank mobley, or ike quebec. that kind of like. i guess we can't all be nat hentoff. every day, got to get up at 7. if a man wants to get up at 7, then great, but when it's not your choice, it sucks. we have created a world of alarm clocks and coffee drinkers, of guys grabbing bites on a moving train. a world of semi-awake zombies with bills to pay. progress. so, every once in a while, in my half assed way, i rebel. i call out. i sleep in. i put a record on. i read the literary bombs dropped by bukowski.

the time goes too fast. tomorrow i'll be a slave again. i'll talk to people i want nothing to do with. i'll be a part of something not hateful, but slightly out of tune, as the song goes. it could be much worse. ask mumia, or the boy bombed in baghdad. but our own tragedy deserves a telling too, no? the mundane murder kills as well. the subtle shot fires, destroying our serenity and our sanity. we are almost too busy to notice. we justify, because who will support us? what else is there to do? classmates thought i could be a great comedian once. that probably would have sucked too. just another struggling stiff, starved for laughs at some out of the way comedy club, stealing from bruce and carlin. also, i have a decent voice, but the last thing the world needs is another run of the mill lounge singer. let some one else sing new york new york. let some one else sit in with a mediorce piano player at some bar run by a fascist who only hires white guys to play jazz. fuck that.

let the others try out for american idol. let the others stand in line for the next toy. their shallow dreams don't satisfy. but, where is the real thing? oh yeah, the guys with the real dreams get murdered, or imprisoned, or silenced by the shit that surrounds them.

still, i'm happy i took the day off. sometimes you gotta come up for air, get some peace amongst the pollution.

tomorrow it starts again.

and i don't even hate my job. i'm one of the lucky ones.

what a world.

thoughts

the students are at the mlk assembly. while sitting at the computer reading blum and bukowski, a thought came to me. i go up to the principle and say "what about a fred hampton assembly? it would be informative. it would teach them that if you become a strong black leader who advocates for radical change, you could be shot in your bed at the age of 21 by the fbi." and the principle would go "fred who?"

of course, king himself was murdered shortly after speaking out against war and forming a more radical class analysis. something tells me this will not be mentioned at the assembly. rather, someone will probably sing amazing grace. perhaps someone else will quote the i have a dream speech. king will be murdered yet again, this time with praise. death by sainthood. how about if we just don't kill our great leaders in the first place, that way we don't have to deify them when they are gone? or ignore them, in the case of the ones who can't be watered down, like hampton. or, we can tell lies about them, and turn them into, in our minds, the murderers that we ourselves are. think mumia, or george jackson. what is the cure for a sick culture? what doctor can write a prescription that can right the wrongs of our criminal, colonial, "civilization?" the students are at an assembly, "celebrating" a great man. it's enough to make a bald man grow fake hair just so he could pull it out.

in case you forgot, we are still bombing the shit out of iraq. i know spears in rehab is the hotter story, but i thought i'd remind you anyway. "why do they hate us?" let me blow up your house and kill your children, and then we'll see how much you like me. arrogant assholes, a country of criminals that can do nothing to soothe its collective conscience other than to make a holocaust film once a year, while it busies itself producing new holocausts, which we will ignore from the front seat of a movie theater as we watch the movie about the old holocaust. and our grandchildren won't ask what we did when the bombs burned baghdad, because we will write the history books. the iraqi anne frank won't get her book published, and if it is published, it will be published by a small publishing house, and students won't have to read it in school. her voice will be murdered along with her body.

we will be too busy shopping on black friday. we will be working, going on dates, cooking, sleeping, shitting. some of us might picket something once in a while, but this won't stop one bomb from falling. others will blog angrily, instead of destroying something useful to those in power. that would take courage, and that, sadly, is something in short supply.

vivian vance...life was never the same for her after she divorced bob vance. their relationship grew cold, like food in one of his fridges. vivian, where are you? are you dining in heaven with lucy, or having sex with ricky in hell? its sad how we have to go back nearly 60 years to find something to laugh at. lucille ball and vivian vance are not coming back. neither are gleason and carney, burns and allen, and so many others. is it really better now? maybe i don't have a clue, but i'd rather listen to an album made in rudy van gelder's living room. and people laugh at the 50's. what a joke our age will be for those who follow us. what is our heritage? what are we passing down? dr.phil? american idol? survivor?

our culture often appears to me as a nightmare. only sleeping makes it go away.

back to work.

desi many things that i dun't

reading "a book" by desi arnez changed my life. that, and the sex change operation i had around the same time. desi was indeed the man who loved lucy. unfortunately, he also loved hundreds of other women, including juicy lucy, the second cut on the a side of a horace silver record. that's gold jerry, gold! desi also used to go to the horace races and bet a lot of silver on the outcomes. alas, desi was a man...uncle thomas mann. isiah alot of things about him, but once i got knicked up for talking shit about him, so lately, i have kept quiet. but, i am running out of space to keep quiet, as my closets are currently filled up with clothes. "a book" was filled with pages. and words also. i particularly enjoyed the way desi employed periods, usually at the end of sentences.
desi surprisingly unveiled his mad affair with vivian vance. vance, it seems, was an oral sex artist, having studied in spain with the great picasso. vance was ad-vanced in the field of sex. she once attempted to have a ball with lucy and desi together, but lucy was not interested in a three way, as she was still making payments on her regular phone. lucy was not surprised to hear about the relationship, for she already knew that desi had fondled their pet goat behind a bush, the same goat that bush read about as the planes flew into the towers.
desi than went on and on about the whole camera thing, about how he was lucy's biggest fan, how he made sure they performed in front of a live audience, blah blah blah. he spoke less about how all the funny scenes always seemed to have lucy in them. desi claimed to enjoy sanford and son, but sanford denied any relations with the older desi. sanford referred to desi as a "redd," perhaps alluding to his cuban heritage, and said "he was a sly stone, slick as a rick foxx." desi, for his part, made many demond's on his lovers, of which he swears both wilson and foxx were.
desi was also quite the drinker, hi c mainly, although his two octave range covered many other notes as well, all of them difficult to listen to. desi insisted on singing on the show, perhaps to sabotage the ratings. whatever the case, desi remains a vital figure in american life, up there with malcolm x and emma goldman. he will always be remembered for something he did with a camera, and with his rapidly diminishing physical appearance. toward the end of his life, he expressed regret that "he had not cheated more," especially during a statistics final in undergrad, where arnez settled for a c. he claimed that if he had to do it all over again, he would have used even more cameras. desi didn't die. his work lives on in all of us, regardless of how much we may attempt to wish it away. his spirit remains.

he left us a book. literally. believe me, you will have a gaye old time with it, if you have the flintstones to read it.

other books i recommend.

henry the 7th: the forgotten henry.

if marlowe wrote shakespeare's plays, who wrote marlowe's?

where have all the telephone booths gone?

master bates: a tail of an ass

woodstock and other bullshit

how the white man ruined everything: a pictorial history.

overlooked books

" i was a cocksucker for the fbi: the memoir of hoover's male lover."
this fascinating tail of make depravity, written by dick cox, demonstrates a fine hand job. a must read for anyone who wants to dig up joe dirt on the half baked hoover.

"jesus: the early years" by paul peter.
this book focuses on the lord's youth. we learn that "he" liked to swim. often a loner, jesus was forced to enjoy quiet times by himself, as his boasts that he was "the son of god" made him somewhat of an outcast to his peers. however, this ended when his dad went to his high school open house. jesus was punished and beaten for only attaining a c in pagan mythology. he started to pray, and then remembered who was beating him. the book has much to offer. a must read for those who call jesus their "homeboy."

"sex for virgins."
this book explains the ins and outs of sex. written by jack harden.

"how to avoid contact with the outside world"
this book helps you to ignore everyone and everything. sadly, the book itself was ignored. no further details are currently available.

"we delivery."
this is the story of all the take out joints that say "we delivery" on their take out menus and then proceed to spell everything else on the menu perfectly. for example, the great wall in jp, where the chairman resides, says on its menu "we can not be responsible for any lost property in our establishment." they then proceed to write "we delivery." is this a clever gag to "tom" to the "man" in order to increase business, or a simple mistake? if it's a mistake, how can the same menu have responsible and establishment spelled correctly? is there more to this than meets the eye? find out in this clever book, written by henry fong, who, it turns out, did not enjoy the opera in his rare appearance on seinfeld.

"blue balls: an oral history" by richard ball
this book goes into graphic detail about this underrated ailment, which every teenage boy has likely experienced on a formative date. suggestions include sexual detachment, masturbation, and suicide.

ali: what is he trying to say?"
interviews with the great ali. this painfully slow read has its moments, particularly the picture section. ali says that he shouldn't have called frazier an uncle tom, but, in his defense, says that he didn't learn his name until after their three fights. ali also tells us that he had an affair with mrs. marcos, and it was a shoe she threw at him, and not a frazier left hook, that led to his mouth swelling during the "thrilla in manila." as the interviews went on, ali became more talkative. towards the end of the book, he is in training for the boston marathon and is considering a boxing comeback. ahh, the power of books.

bush: the man is a fuckhead and other observations."
no commentary needed.

"pinko in 08"
a book which lays out a program for world renewal and hope. cey you will, ron. you can ron but you can't hide. sorry, you have the ron number. pinko's philosophy is expounded in detail. forward by mellish. a must read that will make you forget everything. of course, at that point, you will also forget that you are reading this book. but, at least you won't remember to vote.

peace.

aunt sally, please excuse me, my dear

i suspect the hand of pinko is behind this comment. if my aunt sally had a penis, than none of us would be here. aunt sally was originally uncle sal, but we didn't have an operation that started with a u. aunt sally was a kind, caring woman, who actually detested math. "why can't they shut up about me" she would say, as she ezra pounded her learned hands on her desk. sally thought school was a waste of time, except for nap time, which they eliminated after kindergarden. she was a closet communist, a bedroom democrat, and a porch independent. for the living room, she voted for purple curtains, but her decision was overturned by the supreme court. sally once attempted to overthrow the government, but sadly, her pass was right on target, which led to me losing my shirt, which i had purchased at the same target that her pass overthrew.

i remember quiet nights by quiet stars, as i played my guitar at aunt sally's. sally would yell "i can make better sounds out of my ass, you friggin shit kicker." ahh, if only she were still here. i can hear her now. "mellish, you arm chair anarchist, what infantile beliefs are you holding at this current time?" she could shoot you down with a glare that made you feel slightly shorter than your actual height. than you would realize that you weren't wearing shoes, and that her glare had actually had no impact on your height. but, by then, she already had you. you cried incest, but it was to know jerry a vale. to know know know him, is to love love love him, and i do, and i do, and i do.

sally drove a mustang. she used to drive it right up to the pickett lines. wilson was her favorite president, with harding a close second. she believed that everyone had a right to food, with the possible exception of her neighbor, who was a big fan of house music. she was jealous of him, because she rented her whole life. sally saved religiously. she had 47 bibles. she would wait up for god to come, often falling asleep on the sofa. she would wake up in a trance, but since she was a big booker ervin fan, this didn't bother her. she used to take walk around the neighborhood and wave at everyone. she would smile at everyone, those green teeth making quite an impression.

sally never married, because she felt that no man could equal karl marx, or her index finger, for that matter. aunt sal was a "tough cookie" and when they made her, they threw away the mold, but not before a couple of her cousins got food poisoning. sally liked to bake. her cookies with feces on the inside were sadly overlooked.

sally dreamed of better things, like a phone that worked, and her own clock radio. she was thrifty. she even saved her dreams. she used to tell me i was very wasteful when i would have a different dream two nights in a row. sally was from the "old school," as the new school hadn't been built when she was a student. she often corrected my english, but she would do it in yiddish, which wasn't much help to me. the birth of hitler made her pro abortion. she was for the death penalty until her friend was put to death. she then became a prison abolitionist, and once got lost on an underground railroad for escaped prisoners. sally was for gay marriage and against straight marriage. she was good on the race issue, and for a while, even subscribed to a running magazine.

sally left behind her life.

she was initially missed. then people got on with their meaningless lives, and she became just another picture on the mickey mantle.

poor sally...

like all of us, she never really had a shot.

just a six pack.

save dilberg

this is even better than sick realberg. genius. yes, he should be saved. he should personally learn the power of the lord jesus. he giveth and he taketh away. dilberg has been known to question the lord's existence, but lately, he has found religion. he found a bible behind his sofa, but unfortunately, it was in french. dilberg read the book anyway. he has taken to wearing a mustache and doing a chevalier imitation. he did a fine version of "thank heaven for little girls," but he still wasn't able to get off the show boat. so, he took off his robe, son, and went to bed.

i decided i had to shave my beard. it wasn't worth the comments. from the students, i got among others...

you look like an iraqi
you look like a terrorist
and a girl started calling me "predator"

what are we coming to when a man can't even grow a beard, charles? in many ways, we are becoming a more regressive culture than ever before. it brings to mind dolphy..."i'm leaving the u.s. because when you try to do something different here, they put you down for it."

the two teachers i work with hate each other. their energy seems to go towards maintaining a feud of dubious merit. too bad. there are so many more important things to be angry about. but, they wouldn't think of those things anyway. they would just get mad about some other meaningless shit. shit.

meanwhile, so many buildings which house weapons of war and corrupt corporations remain standing.

i was starting to doubt god's existence. and then the celtics lost. thank you yahweh. you go yahweh and i'll go mine.

thoughts...

why is it that porn movies never have good plots?

fuck pemdas.

this is the 2,000 work day in a row with no meaning.

i was gonna shit on the dock of the bay, but i didn't have any toilet paper.

i still don't know what michael jackson is saying in that song with don't stop till you get enough in it.

that was off the wall.

chew on this; i was gonna prey to g-d, but he wasn't hungry.

you know those people you would seriously harm if you could get away with it? why do they remain your coworkers, no matter what job you do?


when i told a coworker that my girlfriend wanted me to grow a beard (the same one i recently murdered due to popular pressure), he exclaimed negatively, "she wanted you to grow it?" i was gonna say "even hitler had a mustache," but i didn't think he would get it.

people...why are they always around?

why can't i get paid for something i enjoy?

why do we live in a society where we need money at all?

silberg always says that i have only questions, never answers.

is that true?

back to the semi-slavery of the modern workplace.

that's an answer.

unfortunately, it's the wrong one.

but, so is being homeless.

life: a series of crap choices.

back to bukowski.

hello out there

i ran into silberg again today. he told me to watch where i was going. he then broke into song. he was eventually arrested for armed robbery. he went to jail for stealing stormy weather from sinatra's "no one cares" album. "i suppose i will have to face the music" he uttered after sentence was pronounced. sentence was pronounced with a spanish accent by the judge, who was eventually carried away and sent to a clinic. i visited silberg in his cell. some of his words follow.

silberg is serving a run on sentence. a female friend of his has a period, but silberg's sentence doesn't. he thought the sentence was unfair. silberg is in a crowded jail. when i got there, he was singing "don't fence me in." it was a cole day. after a pleasant conversation with a porter, i bobbed my head in. i was wearing a weave. silberg saw me, and immediately made light of his sentence. "hair today, gone tomorrow, tom" he bellowed. saul told him to cool it down. i showed him the new edition of the new york times, which had an in depth article on chad, his favorite country.

gradually, we began to discuss the important issues of our time. "no, i don't think nick lachey should be killed, but he is worthy of some punishment" silberg began. silberg complained that the prison library did not have an impressive selection of detective fiction. he also felt that the rather slim collection of italian neo-realist films housed at the prison reflected negatively on the institution. he did admit that he was getting "his three squares a day," but wondered out loud if he might not be able to sample some other shapes at some point. "i could really go for a grilled hexagon right about now" he said to me while listening to the steve lawrence album i had smuggled into him. "that soul brother sure had chops" he stated.

silberg said he had been treated pretty well in jail, "besides the rape and obligatory brutalization of my mind, soul, and body that is inherent in total institutions within neo-fascist north america." silberg was contemplating becoming a black muslim, but when he last attempted to go to one of their meetings, they spoke of him as a "blue eyed devil." in his defense, he argued that his eyes were brown, but they were not receptive. they said "your jewish; you have enough money to start your own group." he tried to start a jewish muslim group, but he didn't have enough money to get it off the ground. however, since he was already on the ground, he didn't have to get it off the ground. his money soon ran out though. he tried to run after his money, be he couldn't catch up to it. when last he heard, 43 of his dollars were living happily in bolivia.

silberg attempted to start a revolt within the prison walls, but once he got into the walls, he found it hard to get back to the rest of the prison. once he got back to the prison, he tried to get the prisoners riled up. his list of demands were impressive.

he asked that the library carry "eric dolphy; the complete prestige recordings." he asked that for every prisoner raped, a prison guard, judge, or jury member be raped, under the assumption that the rates of rape in prison would therefore rapidly decline. he demanded that hebrew-english dictionaries be made available to the thousands of hasidic jews being persecuted in our jails. he demanded that all prison food be organic, and the chicken free range.

he is still waiting for a reply.

eventually, our time was up. i told him i would do all i could for him, but that after working all day, listening to jazz, reading, and paying bills, this would probably not be too much. he told me he "understood," and that he should have stood higher. i told him this would have put him out of my hearing range. he told me i was even cornier than he was. we laughed, then we cried, then suddenly, love died. the story ends, and we're just friends.

we are all behind bars now, except those of us behind night clubs.

farewell.

ranting in beantown

i know this sounds bad, but i am really tired of people in wheel chairs getting on the bus. does it have to take that door a half hour to open? and then there are the other people on the bus. there is the guy who smells like a two hundred pound pile of fecal matter. there is the guy who directs traffic..."can you move to the back of the bus. there is plenty of room in the back." first of all, why is this guy doing the work of the driver? why does he even care who stands where? for that matter, why should every one move to the back of the bus? of course, there is the annoying slob who takes up two seats, and there is the jerk who sits in the seat closet to the aisle, which forces you to have to squeeze into the inside seat. worst of all is the fuckhead who lies down taking up four seats, and the nimrod who puts his bag down next to him, taking up 2 to 3 seats.

then, there is the bus itself. who can forget the rear door that needs to be oiled, and makes the sound of a shrieking whistle every time it is opened? or the driver that doesn't honor the first request for the rear door to be opened, hence forcing the rider to shout "i said rear door!" this request can also be made in a pleading manner..."rear door???"

there are the high school students who say "like" every 2 seconds, and the other kids who use the n word as if they collect arcade tickets for each time they use it. there is the guy who tries to talk to the one good looking woman on the bus, and then blames her if she doesn't respond to his inappropriate advances. there is the down on his luck white trash drunk who calls the black driver "brother" and tries to bum a free ride. there is occasionally a drunk who will say awful things that you can't help but laugh at, like the guy on the 19 bus heading to fields corner in dorchester, who said "i shit in my pants, yes i do!" there are the groups of four to seven asian girls with a map who are always stunned to find that harvard is not a collection of high rise buildings.

there is the taped voice that tells us what stop is coming up. the same voice announces "stop requested" when you press a button requesting said stop. going up to the driver and asking for the stop is obviously an obsolete concept, similar to listening to 8 tracks or watching adult films in a movie theater. there is the bus that "runs every 8 minutes" that you have been waiting for for a half hour. and it's cold outside. and you don't have the month of may. and when it comes, the driver doesn't apologize. there is no explanation, no one acknowledges the grave injustice of it all. and then you are stuck in a sea of sweat as the smells of shit suddenly smack you in the face. you hold on for dear life. you always end up next to the most unattractive people on the bus. some fat fuck is banging into you, the one with the back pack that is smashing into you, forcing you to nearly fall into the lap of the 85 year old woman. you will not be given a free ride for this. it will not replace the holocaust on the list of all time crimes.

and your day hasn't even started yet.

more from silberg

ran into silberg last night. after knocking him over, i helped him up. we began a compelling conversation, from which i will cull several choice comments.

we began by talking about children. silberg stated that he would love to pass on his jeans, but didn't think he needed children to do this, as he was leaning toward donating them to a thrift shop. silberg said "while my children may like my jeans, what will they think of my slacks? if they want my clothing, they will have to take them all." silberg said that he would also like to pass down his recording of "jean" a hit for oliver, who sadly, never recorded the twist. silberg is concerned that he will not be able to pass down the family name. "i want a boy george, a young guy i can give dolls to" he exclaimed. silberg thinks he may have to move to san diego when he starts his family, as he thinks that would be a fine place to be a padre. silberg made it clear that he is not completely sold on children however. he is still fuming from the fact that he could not engage his girlfriend's nephew in a conversation about booker ervin. he then went on a rant about how "young children do not give nearly enough thought to the dangers of our foreign policies." he once tried to explain to a young chap that his elmo stuffed animal was made in a vietnamese sweatshop, but this startling tid bit of info did not produce the desired reaction from said youth. "selfish pricks, our young ones are."

silberg then turned to popular culture. "have you seen that new show, "who wants to blow up a small, defenseless country with a significant non-white population and a plethora of natural resources?" it looks really interesting." i told him because i've been sleeping more, that i'm not as cot up on tv as i used to be. silberg became angry as he spoke. "tv could have been used for good. why did swan have to be taken off the air?" silberg thinks our youth spend too much time in front of the tv. "they should be jerking off, or learning about nature, not necessarily in that order." he suggests that the government finance a victor feldman museum, as that "might improve the vibes of our nation." he is angry with radio too. he is concerned that only banal pop music gets a hearing. "why, there is a 50-50 chance that our young will not be exposed to wilber hard on!" he shouted as he sat on the john in the coltrane wiping his a. once, he wanted to duke it out with someone who liked jammin 94.5. "buster, i can't even count how many bad songs they play on that station. the producers at that station must be agents for the government, for their music gives me high anxiety." he then told me "he brooks no grudges with the dj's, but if he meets the dick johnson who created the station, he would blow his head off."

silberg then spoke of his job. "i should have realized that a degree in petting would not help me in the work force." silberg claims that his job could be worse. "hey, i could be the bottom in a male porn movie...i should complain? silberg would like to make more money, as it is hard to properly furnish his cardboard box on the salary he earns. silberg is somewhat on the cheap side. he watches his pennies. he used to watch his penis, but he felt like a dick, so he stopped. he claims to enjoy watching the pennies, although he wishes there was more of a plot. he says he is going to drop a dime on them if the stories don't get better, and take a trip to the french quarter for some action. silberg is not cheap. rather, he is frugal. he once wrote an essay on the difference, but was too cheap (frugal) to print it out. he is saving his change in order to eventually buy a mansion. on the job, he is getting concerned that a few people now know his name. "i might need to move on. what's next, coworkers inviting me to parties?" silberg would prefer not to work, but his landlord, interestingly enough, feels otherwise. lately, he has thought about saving string, but he is unclear on where to cash it in. he hopes to eventually find work that he can be proud of, like being that guy who takes your parking ticket at a major university.

on war, silberg grew tired. "why can't they just have debating teams decide who wins? maybe denzel could direct." silberg thinks war is a waste of resources. "think of how much toilet paper those soldiers use. our boys could be shitting right here in the good old u s of a, but instead, their feces are being spread all over nations with sub par sewage systems leading to disastrous environmental effects." according to silberg, the only good thing about war was that edwin starr song, although he did acknowledge that the temptations version should be better known. he then began to warn me "about the dangers to our national security coming from belize." suddenly, he broke into song with a killer version of "belize release me, let me go." at this point, i knew i must leave. i bid him farewell, but alas, he was not the winning bidder. i made him a second chance offer, but by then, he was too far away from me to hear.

as he walked away, he shouted "don't forget not to write!"

silberg...

he marches to the beatle of his own roach.

ron, we may have to cart her away if her comments continue to be off bass

cello. is it me you're looking for? that was an out there way to start a blog.

i am currently sitting at a "reference only" computer at the brookline public library. well, i for one find this blog to be a vital source of information, and i will not let quaint things like rules impede its progress. yes, only a man reading the confederacy of dunces could write such pithy remarks.

just finished the extras christmas special. i must say, it made me feel a little better about the holiday. it put me in a gay mood and made me want to sing a christmas adam and steve carell. after seeing it, i don't think anyone will be able to rainn wilson on my parade for a good while. seriously, it was something to see. in an age of endless garbage, gervais stands as one of the few cultural creatures of note. his andy millman should be widely seen and regarded as one of the great characters in the history of television, just as my blog should be regarded as a unique contribution to the world of letters, an ode owed to those who have chosen to stand and fight against the beast of modern capitalism.

perhaps i did put a little to much rum in that soda. so duh, wouldn't you have done the same? perhaps i should just make a mclean break of it and take a long drink of the blues, unlike an actor i know who took a long drink of the penis by a rock near the hudson river. clever, you cey, ron? wells david, i will have you know that i write this blog with no aids. i do it all. i fly solo, for i have soul, o, more than just about any rock head in this country.

let my blog be my message to a deaf world. let silberg read it, and be touched. i saw silberg last week. he told me he got a really good deal the last time he went to the library. silberg is recovering from christmas. luckily for him, there is a santa claus in his contract that he only needs to celebrate it once a year. silberg curses the modern consumer, usually from his spot in a line of one of the various record stores where much of his money is collecting interest while he satisfies his interest. silberg recently thought of joining the iraqi resistance, but couldn't get a good deal on a plane ticket, what with the high cost of gas and all. on the oil heat in his apartment, he recently uttered, "it is better to be cold. it is also cheaper." silberg once thought of bombing an oil tank, but stopped short (that's a pretty good move) when he realized that one of the tanks had a picture on it that looked a little like ho chi minh. silberg has lately taken to be a working stiff, as no one has yet appeared to act as his benefactor. on the subject of sports, he told me the patriots are not a perfect team, it's just that they never lose, and that coed lacrosse would some day come to dominate the north american sports scene. shortly before we parted, he recommended the death penalty for mariah carey, and was hopeful that william blum could become the next president of our beloved harold land. oh silberg, what "wisdom" is his.

until we meet again,

revolution...when will you make your way to our shores?

on working with a bunch of nimrods and other observations

the teacher i work with has been doing order of operations math problems with the students. she is a strict pemdasist. pemdas, or please excuse my dear aunt sally, stands for parenthesis exponents multiplication division addition subtraction. bg teaches this like a true totalitarian. she doesn't realize that you do the multiplication and division from left to right. to her, you strictly follow pemdas, which means you always do the multiplication first. this has led to all kinds of bizarre answers with mixed numbers. when she realizes this, she will have the class skip the problem! of course, when the problem is done correctly, you get a logical answer in the form of a whole number. i thought about telling her, but in my last attempt to change the world via my position as a lowly para, i was informed that the students have to put the 0 before the decimal, even though this has no impact on the value of the number. this is so because "this is how they learned it." of course, they only learned it that way because they were taught it that way, just as they are currently learning incorrect mathematical computations. whatever. it's all bullshit anyway.

on to history. today, we "studied" the mexican american war. the words genocide and imperialism were carefully avoided. in fact, they are concepts foreign to the feeble mentality of our hero, mc. mc, by the way, is a rudy g in 08 supporter. nothing like being the mayor of a city that had a big building destroyed to demonstrate your capability of running the most powerful nation on the history of the planet. back to the war, there were no pictures of dead civilians, and no destroyed cities were depicted. rather, mc made a point of saying that the 15 million the u.s. gave to mexico for nearly half of their territory "was a lot of money in the 1840's." ahh, the wonders of imperial north american generosity. the lesson was taught with no passion. mc seemed detached, perhaps a tad content that "we" (mc always speaks of we to describe the rich white men who took over north america at this time) achieved victory in this war. certainly, concepts like crime or conquest were absent from the discussion. when, or if, we get to world war two, he will perhaps use this kind of language to describe the actions of our enemies. meanwhile, american atrocities will be ignored, or spoken of in a bobby bland style that will invariably make me blue. the holocaust? a crime of genocide! hiroshima? a tactical decision to employ our nuclear arsenal in order to end the war and save both american and japanese lives.

god bless objectivity.

i am coming toward the end of the "extras christmas special." i have been watching it on youtube, since i wasn't able to get to the other link, proving yet again that the computer age has left me at the starting bill gates. so far, it has been a joy. gervais is a master at combining comedy and tragedy, perhaps the best at it since jackie gleason. this special is special. check it out if you have the thyme. that spelling was used for those of you still using windows 98.

the patriots are 16-0 and the celtics are 27-3. this, and the ongoing brutalization of baghdad have me in bad mood. there are a brady bunch of reasons to hate the pats. someone moss beat them or i will surely loss my mind. and while it is by no means automatic that they will beat the colts, the chance of them winning the superbowl has me in a funk that the brothers have not been able to raise me out of.

i am surrounded by mental midgets whose salary dwarfs my own. i am the foot soldier. it is not my job to question their tried and untrue methods. at least i get to leave at 2:30 and don't have to sit through meaningless meetings on new teaching methodologies. and, i am closer to the students, an odd go between on the fringes of two worlds, belonging to neither. g-d, you can use language to make anything sound powerful.

back to my world of literary illusion. i am the invisible man, hg. i am the david who went to the wells once too often. i subsist on a wage of 13:40 an hour, which i suppose means that i am not "poor." after my rent is deducted, i have about 160 dollars at the end of the month which must go to milk and music. luckily, i have a savings. ahh, life in the slow lane. i believe myself ready for a part on that new show "lifestyles of the poor and unknown."

some bumper stickers i really like...

"support our troops. we are going to need them to overthrow our government."

"at least the war on the environment is going well."

"bring back the eight hour day."

and who can forget the timeless...

"jesus hates me."

big e, that was for you. i hope no one has recently trashed your ml carr over that. funny how those guys who trumpet our rights and blab on about "freedom of speech" don't seem to mind robbing their opponents of it every chance they get.

america; your glories never cease to amaze me.

is there no bob hope that the george burns on the lucille ball of my foot will heal?

back to work today. p asked me "do you remember roman polanski, the film director?" another time, he randomly said "robert goulet. he died last year." i explained that my mom saw him on broadway in "camelot" with richard burton. p, understandably so, lost interest quicker than a life's savings in the crash of 29.

i don't mind my job. it could be a lot worse. however, just knowing that i have to be anywhere pisses me off. i want to be able to call the shots when it comes to how my time is spent.

watched "mingus live in 64" last night. it was incredible. in fact, it was so amazing that i just ordered it from a dealer in hong kong. i met this dealer while sitting on the dock of the ebay. while i was redding the amazon items he had for sail beond the sea, including a cd of billy ocean's greatest hits, i decided to grab the mingus. the mingus dvd is 2 hours of pure joy. eric dolphy is featured throughout. man, what that band could do. luckily, for us jazz nuts, the jazz icons series has produced close to 20 dvd's so far. i can also vouch for the art blakey from 1958, which featured tremendous lee morgan, particularly on "i remember clifford." that's brown, not ray. if you must know, my puns must always be the center of attention. if this blog is going to move forward and be on point, i will have to guard against their overuse. i am shooting for a different style of writing, a style with a power all its own, and i will not leave you, my reader, malone, until i find it.

i meanwhile, am going crazy (gotta get you out of my mind) requesting these jazz dvd's from various local libraries. thank g-d for libraries, the one institution that the cyborg vanguard will leave standing. i don't mellish having to destroy things, but our current institutions can not leave their marx on our future nirvana.

my ike quebec cd is the thing with leonard feather liner notes.

i don't care what anyone says... that film "burn" with marlon brando was terrible. i know it was done by the same guy that did "battle of algiers," but sinatra did new york new york, and that sucks too.

why was i bourne? what's my identity? please help me get off the matt on this damon. don't take this as an ultimatum. it's just a word to the wise. i don't have a chip on my shoulder. believe me, i'm a layed back guy. i don't have a sour personality, although i am tired of hearing booker t and the mg's version of green onions. furthermore, i could do without anything by cream, and i don't have any room for barry white either. i would rather lie on the pendergrass and listen to a chicago bears game with my friend teddy. but who listens to what i have to cey, ron? who tickles me, pinko?

what a laugh life turned out to be. i am having a lot of pun, except when i hear johnnie ray sing "cry."
ok, i'll show some mercy mercy me, because i know this can't be a gaye time for you to read this. so, i'll make the supremes sacrifice, and stop in the name of love.

and, i'm hungry too.