FRIDAY

Today I heard Erik Larson read a selection from his work and he is a terrific writer but I was listening to him when I was in the car and I was wondering how I would remember his name. Still, as you can see, I did.

Today I thought about Eric Loos. He had such as strange name and I remember very little about him other than the fact that he had a terrifically shaped head, very handsome, and a really great crew cut that conformed to his terrifically shaped head, and he was eight years old. I doubt he has a crew cut anymore and I bet by now his hair is grey. I also remember that he yelled GOTCHA when he hit me with the ball during a game of dodgeball in 1964, the day before the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan Show. * Everything else about Eric Loos are things that I would have to guess, like his name. Loos is, what, Scandanavian, I think? Or German like Adolf Loos the dandy architect or Czech, it could be Czech. Didn’t Anita Loos write GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDS? And that’s French of course. Also Eric Loos had a living room was one long plate glass window and I think he also had a sister who was very pretty, and seven.

Today I thought about Jack Larson, I am not completely sure, but I think that after he played “Jimmy Olsen” in SUPERMAN he became really serious about music and did stuff in music and I may be wrong but I think that he was drinking with Virgil Thompson and Frank O’Hara on Fire Island on the night that Frank O’Hara got run over by a beach buggy. I am not sure if Jack Larson is homosexual, but since he was drinking with Virgil Thompson and Frank O’Hara at three in the morning on Fire Island he might be. Or too bad for Jack Larson if he wasn't. Oh. That is a very narrow way of looking at things, isn’t it? I have no reason to think one thing or another. But come on, I mean, really. And even if he is a composer, still, it is really hard to take Jack Larson seriously. All I can think of when I see his face is the word “Jeepers.” Even if his hair is now grey, which I suppose it must be by now unless he is dead, or bald.



* I made this part up, of course.

** I actually have an abiding affection for Jimmy Olsen, and I can thank Jack Larson for that. I bet he is a terrific musician.

WHEN I GET OLDER, I WANT TO TAKE A VACATION IN BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN

The mailman came and brought me a little box! I love you, mailman, and I always have. Even when I was a little boy, and even though there are a million of you. I can’t wait to see you again! What will you do next? I hope it is what you always do. I especially like it when you have silvery hair and a little limp.

And now I will open that box again. The box you sent me is filled with foam. Filled! With foam! Thank you! Love? There you go, limping away, with a smile. He’s waving! Mailman, how I love you!

THURSDAY

Today I had three thoughts about Scott Walker, the 30th century man, and one thought about Benito Mussolini:

I am so glad that Scott Walker came out of seclusion and admitted that he was first introduced to Jacques Brel by a Playboy Bunny on a rooftop in Berlin who loved to drink Pernod. If he hadn’t admitted it, I think it would have remained his secret forever, which would be kind of sad.

I think that Scott Walker is the only man in the world who never changed a thing about himself and then let his art change all around him. I want to be the next man who does that. Doesn’t everybody?

Scott Walker is the best kind of artist to find by mistake. You first say, “What’s this?” and then you say, “What th---?” And then you start saying little prayers filled with thanks and say “I am glad I didn’t run away”, although to be truthful, " I did think about doing it quite a bit.”

The thought I had about Mussolini I will just keep to myself. There are very few uncreepy thoughts about Mussolini. I would rather just listen to Scott Walker right now.


MMMM. That's nice. Not at all like a Mussolini thought.

INDEPENDENCE DAY, FAT & DOMINO-LIKE

It’s not like I haven’t seen a 4th of July before.

I’ve seen so many that I could scream. Like yes, one of those on the 4th of July.

And so today, I choose to have another kind of 4th of July.

I am going to cut my hair so that it stands up straight and flat like a golf course putting green across the top width of my skull.

Next, a moustache. Nice big space beneath my septum will have no moustache right there.

And so instead of looking at my moustache when you look there and see nothing you can look down at my yellow tie (located beneath the septum under the neck) which is thin and canary-perfect, but gentle, unlike the common and so called ‘domesticated,’ annoying canaries. 

Yes, I have throttled with vigor and ultimately killed completely a few of those odious beasts in moments of pique and grief as have so many with just cause.

Since you think you know so much and are so good and human try owning one and see what happens I dare you.

I will even buy one for you and then we’ll see what’s what.

And then, well then, here’s what I plan on doing next. 

I mean, I will compose what I plan on doing in a song. 

I will sing it from the mountain tops in my suit and yellow tie.

My apartment is four hours from the mountains.

My brown suit the color of a brown M + M piece of candy.

Imagine my M + Ms on top of the mountain.

OK I think instead I will sing it at the water’s edge on the beach.

It’s only two hours away with all the fucking seagulls there.

Noisy, and filthy, too.

It is called ALL BY MYSELF and it goes like this.

Hold on. You want to know why it is called  ALL BY MYSELF.

It’s called ALL BY MYSELF because that’s what I want to call it.

But for the record, back when I was a baby, Fats Domino, that guy, made an album called STOMPIN’ and all the songs had titles that made a great poem if you didn’t listen to them but just read them one after the other after the other and so on. 

The first song was called ALL BY MYSELF.

I like to mash them all together in one big lump. STOMPIN’: ALL BY MYSELF.

Right now, I am ALL BY MYSELF. I am sitting in a dumb chair.

I do not honestly believe that Fats Domino was ever that (all by himself, even though he was a man of generous preportions but undeniable charm and a silky, 20 year tawny voice to match.)

I am, though. For all eternity. 

All by myself.

Here I go.


ALL BY MYSELF

Don’t blame it on me
Are you going my way?
Be my guest
Along the Navajo Trail
Every night
She’s my baby
My teenage love (that)
I Stomp Like A Domino *
Why? **
Because I can’t give you
anything. It makes me angry, ***
I can’t give you anything
But love



I have never sung anything truer in my life.

As people love to say, that means nothing.

I don’t care very much.

Watch me go to the barber.

Watch me go to the pet store.

And off to the mountains I go.

With a song in my heart.

I am going and I am going to do it. 

I’m not kidding.

ZOOM.

I went.


* go, fats, go!

** I added this, I had to.

*** I added this, I wanted to.

FARMERS. NOT ONES YOU SEE.

I keep watching the corn stalks grow. They are immense! Every year they amaze me with their sheer gargantuaness. I ride by them on my bicycle, quickly at first, and then I slow down a little, and wonder what it must be like to walk through them very gently, trying not to disturb them or to impede their kernel-growing ardor. I imagine myself lying down in the midst of the stalks and watching the sun rise into the sky, as I am holding hands. But–with whom? And are there corn-related bugs? Doesn’t the sun rise over there, not here? Again, whose hand exactly am I holding? And then I ride just a little bit faster past the corn that soon the secret farmers chop down to the root to stop us from thinking such things. Secret because, I believe that, compared to most farmers, they are invisible. Compared, mind you.

LAMENT

I have one pair of blue jeans with three holes in them.

I have one pair of blue jeans with five holes in them.

Last year I promised you that I would never write anything about my blue jeans again.

And now you are gone. Somewhere, in the mountains. Lost, perhaps. I hope not dead. I worry about you so.

I have two pairs of blue jeans.

One pair has three holes in them.

The other, five.

LABELS - I NEED YOUR HELP

In the last three years, I have discussed the following subjects (below) but I can't decide which one I like best. Can you help?

My vote might just go to 1 dollar weiners, but that's because it comes first, and I tend to be an impatient reader.

Crispy

PS – OH! Look over at the right side of this site and far down if you want to see, for example, when I was talking about rustic mustaches or mighty codpieces or even happy teenage hearts.


1 dollar weiners (1)
100 grand (1)
11:00 PM (1)
1957 (1)
1964 (1)
30 something (1)
a rustic mustache (1)
adventure (1)
africa (1)
amber (1)
amphetamines (1)
angels (1)
anthony dominick benedetto (1)*
anything (1)
bad dog (1)
balsa wood (1)
baltimore (1)
bangladesh (1)
banshees (1)
beak (1)
bear (1)
bed (1)
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blood (1)
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california (1)
capas (1)
capes (1)
casino owners (1)
cat women (1)
catnip (1)
champagne (1)
cherry (1)
chest hair (1)
chicken (1)
chicken breasts (1)
Chief Thunderthud (1) **
chocolate (1)
chow dogs (1)
cilantro (1)
circles (1)
clouds (1)
cobbled (1)
cockroaches (1)
cointreau (1)
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content (1)
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counter tops (1)
Cowabunga (1)
crazy barbers (1)
creamsicles (1)
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crescent moon (1)
crickets (1)
Cuidado (1) ***
darwin (1)
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model t (1)
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Yonkers (1)


* anthony dominick benedetto: just a fancy way of saying 'tony bennett'

** I am not sure why I capitalized 'Chief Thunderthud' and 'Mr. T' and didn't capitalize 'Darwin' but that was a long time ago.

*** look! I also capitalized 'Cuidado' and 'Cowabunga' – that was probably a good idea.

READERS are GOD

I thought I wished you
knew what I was doing
now but you do, you do

LOUIS PRIMA IN VEGAS

Las Vegas, that is. Prima style.

And he is clutching Keely Smith, a beauty
to his breast and her eyes roll towards

the ceiling, the photographer snaps
the photograph: SNAP

and forever it is forever an album cover

a very good one, although Lord
Jesus only knows what it sounds like

inside–I certainly do not.
But I do know one thing:

After the camera went
SNAP, Louis Prima let her go

and she walked away

perhaps to the Sahara

for a very early breakfast

and a cigarette

her eyes no longer rolling

towards the heavens or really

anywhere, and darkness covered

the earth that night until

later that

same morning

LOVE & SCHULTZ

Some friendships remind of me of the first page of Bruno Schulz’s STREET OF CROCODILES–something so beautiful and so perfect that you wonder How could this get any better? Well, it can’t, it can only stay the same: a perfect Bruno Schultz Street of Crocodiles friendship forever, never changing a whit, which is a little sad, really, because sometimes it would be nice if it would change a whit, but it doesn’t, and there you are with your love and friendship blazing with sunshine and scented with the sweet melting pulp of golden pears. Oh Bruno! What did you know, anyway, and why didn’t you just come out and say it while you still could?

GALL IS HERE! THE GALL, THE GALL!

It's been at lulu.com for a wee bit, and it is finding homes, deserving homes. Deserving homes that want to read tiny fable stories about losing your gall bladder. Sylvia, it doesn't get more confessional than this.*

FROM THE INTRODUCTION:

1998 – where do I begin? Allen Ginsberg was gone, Larry Rivers was gone, Gregory Corso was gone–but my gall bladder? It was still there. But for how long? Read the oft spoke of, seldom seen GALL and you will know for yourself. Definitely for the squeamish!




* Actually, sometimes it does. Not for me, though.



all artwork, including handsome monsters but not crinkly devilish types, ® mr. crispy flotilla, 2008

THE ART OF THE NEXT SENTENCE

Well, since you asked, I am on page 124 of MORNINGS ON HORSEBACK.

The next sentence should be:

1) The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt

2) Thanks for asking. I'm doing pretty well, but I am a slow reader. How’s your Mum?

3) At words poetic, I'm so pathetic that I always have found it best, Instead of getting 'em off my chest, To let 'em rest unexpressed

4) None of your beeswax.

5) Would you like to read it when I am done? CAVEAT: I eat peanut butter cookies while I am reading my books.

6) SETTING: The night is warm and moist and there is no breeze. A moth enters the dwelling. You appear to be visibly upset by the appearance of the moth. I say Shoo, moth, shoo! and attempt to shoo the moth with the back of my hand in a gesture that is somewhat effeminate and unpersuasive to the moth. The longer the moth remains flittering here and there, the more visibly upset you appear. I decide upon a course of action. I stand up, fully erect, and with one simple, declarative, forceful motion, smoosh the offending moth with the backside of MORNINGS ON HORSEBACK whereupon the moth (from now on to be referred to as "EXHIBIT A") remains crushed and lifeless right under the part on the cover that says The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt and the moth remains proper, as they are, adhere between the words 'unique' and 'child' on the cover and there are a lot of peanut butter cookie crumbs about now, but I don't mind, they must die. I mean

If you hate moths, then by God, so do I.

SATURDAY

Today I saw a picture of a donut in Portland, Oregon that had white cream eyeballs and a lemon custard fang that looked like it was dripping out of its mouth from its head which was made of Boston cream chocolate. Oh Portland Oregon!

FRIDAY

Today I read that Joyce Carol Oates used to write 40 pages of fiction every day and I thought that she probably has a very flabby core muscle group.

I DON’T FALL IN LOVE WITH GUYS pt. 1 (PARTS 2,3,4 missing for now but PART 3 just talks about how much I love my pen)

part one

I don’t fall in love with guys–I just don’t. Sure, once in a while I will say something like: “That Walter Cronkite is a devastatingly handsome man” but what I really mean is that Walter Cronkite is very avuncular and I feel safe and warm in his presence. Although I really am not in his presence–I am actually lying down on the rug in the living room and watching him on television and he is talking about Somebody just shot the President!

In reality, as I recall, I am just remembering someone else commenting casually not so much on Walter Cronkite but on how handsome Julie Newmar was, poured deep and sexy-style into her sparkly spangled black leotard and matching black cat mask in the 1966 television series, BATMAN. I forget who he was now, it’s been quite a while, but I do remember him saying: “That Jewlie Newmar is a devastatingly handsome woman”–not an avuncular woman–not a woman who made you feel safe and warm–but a devastatingly handsome woman who purloined the animal fever of your heart and held it captive in a prisoner-like way, intoxicated by the savory catnip of her tingly feline and curvaciously de trop beauty. And I, like so many millions probably, fell in love with her the first time she said “Purr-fect” because, as I said, I do not fall in love with guys, I fall in love with girls–there are millions of us who do–why, I think even Julie Newmar would if she were me–and I hate to say it but, we are all so very unhappy, but it is nobody’s fault, least of all Walter Cronkite’s.

THURSDAY

Today I was so excited when I told Geoffrey and Gregory about my new name Joey Meatballs but they said Have you ever been to Moe’s and I said No, I haven’t but isn't that a Mexican restaurant and then they gave that knowing look to each other and for the life of me I don’t know what my new name of Joey Meatballs has to do with Moe’s which I think is a Mexican restaurant and then they told me about Joey Bag o’Donuts which is a real speciality they say at Moe’s.

WEDNESDAY

Today I realized that 51 is the perfect age to get tired of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Today when I discovered that there is almost no nutritonal value at all in a Quaker Oats Energy Bar, I didn’t get upset – I felt happy and relieved. “The old coot has done it again!” I thought.

Today I pondered: we live in a humorous world where the last letter of the alphabet is ‘Z’ and somewhere in the middle of its dictionary you can find the word ZOWIE.

TUESDAY

Today Iggy Pop said once when he was close to death he heard the celestial choir which was beautiful but the music sounded like Tangerine Dream and it was pretty lame.

1904

ONE

According to
Thomas R. Lounsbury,
a professor at Yale University
the English language has been
steadily infilterated by both
barbarisms and vulgarisms.

And even though 1904
was a long time ago,
I agree. One thing that
makes me sad, for instance,

Is that we no longer use
the word ‘vulgarism’

Nor do we use ‘barbarism’

much.

TWO

But there’s a lot more
to it, really. For example,

Did you know that the third
person neuter, once upon
a time, was not ‘It’ but ‘Hit’?

So if you are going to place
a ‘hit’ on someone now, that
means you are going to off them,
Corleone-style, but then it
could mean that you were going
to put some kind of object on
him, like a raisin on his shoulder–
or the anvils you see drawn so
majestically in old cartoons–on
his face–and that he would live
to love another day,

with a raisin on his shoulder or his
face smooshed, via of course the anvil.

THREE

I shouldn’t admit that I didn’t
know this about it, but of course
you and I have known each other
for a long time, and I do not
get easily embarrassed in front
of you, in fact, I love you. Not
like I am in love with you, but
I really do love you at least a
little bit. I am really in love
with Alexander Pope and
John Gielgud. I like the way
they talk.

FOUR

‘You’ hasn’t changed like ‘It’
has. It still says ‘you’ and that’s
that. When I say ‘you’ I mean
everybody, but not me.

Or it.

FIVE

Here’s another interesting deal
about English:

‘Sprung’ ‘Sung’ & ‘Drunk’
were once

‘Sprungen’ ‘Sungen’ & ‘Drunken’
which I bet you didn’t know.

I found out last night reading Mr.
Lounsbury while you were probably
at a bar, drunken.

SIX

‘Held’ for ‘Holden’ ‘Sat’ for ‘Sitten’
& ‘Stoode’ for ‘Stonden.’

“We are fickle common people
mobile vulgus and we like to change things.”

SEVEN

Why stop now? Worried about a heart attack
of the English language? Not really. In fact,
they say if you laugh aloud every day, the
chances are you will have a healthier heart,
and die instead of something like cancer
or a train accident.

‘Hide’ and ‘Chide’ are verbs of the weak
conjugation. But it gets worse. In the 16th

Century, they gussied up the look this way:

‘Hidden’ and ‘Chidden.’ I know. I feel
the exact same way. You needn’t say a
thing. I can read your mind. Our brains
are melding and it’s really awesome.

EIGHT

And that’s not all. In fact, we are only up
to like, page 2 of Thomas R. Lounsbury
interesting article.

There’s still ‘Alonges’ “Amiddes’ and
‘Amonges.’ And God if I don’t dig
‘Drownded.’ But that’s quite enough
for me.

For if I continue, I will be rich with sorrow,
for Grammarians scarcely laugh at all,
and tend to die of broken hearts, not
train wrecks.

Meanwhile, in my comfortable house,
The limpid pools of change make me clutch
the air to the bosom of my heart and I hold
it as tight as can be gasping for air and nobody
sees me laughing and nobody sees it laughing
neither but me.

DIE RHYMES WITH CRY

1606

In “An Hour’s Recreation
In Music” (Richard Alison,
1606) it’s hard not to notice
that Richard Alison says,

There cherries grow,
that none may buy
Till cherry ripe themselves
do cry.

It’s hard not to notice
because it is right
there on the page
in the first stanza
of the poem, entitled

“An Hour’s Recreation
&c &c” by Richard
&c.”

I have been thinking
lately: if I threw it
away, it would be
harder to notice.

If I walked into the
street and got hit by
a bus, I could very
well die.

I can’t help it:

‘Die’ rhymes with ‘Cry’

Unless I have powers
that I don’t know
about, and wouldn’t
know about until
the bus did its
business, and if I do

I extend a handful
of cherries to you.
It’s not a trick.
I found them in
1606.

BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS

In 1970, Blood Sweat & Tears released their 3rd album. It was called “Blood, Sweat & Tears” not “Child Is Father To The Man” like you think a third album might be called but that was actually the name of their first album which I never heard and didn’t want to hear much. Still, for some reason during that summer, which was a beautiful summer which I should have been playing outside, I spent my daytime hours instead staring at the cover of Blood, Sweat & Tears–not exactly in love, but truly soaking it in although I am not sure why, because it didn’t have eight musicians on it sitting with child-size versions of themselves on their laps in a kind of creepy, interesting child-is-father-to-the-man way. What it did have was just a sort of a photograph with nine print-stamp men wearing coats that look like peacoats on it, plus two trees in the foreground, plus a misty fog that seems to rise just to their stomachs (although not quite since the men are different sizes and the misty fog is always the same size and some of them were sitting down and some of them were standing up.)

The two colors on the album, other than white which doesn’t count, are black and a sort of interesting pink-grey. I really love pink-grey, I discovered that for sure in 1970. Boy, I probably spent ten hundred hours over three months staring at that cover, at those men, and the pink-grey fog and at the trees. I don’t know why, but I really loved it, the whole thing. And I was afraid to buy it because then I could look at it all the time, afraid to not buy it because then I couldn’t look at it when I wanted to during shopping hours if somebody else bought it instead. I wasn’t really sure what Laverdier’s restocking policy was, and jazz-rock albums weren’t really that popular quite yet. I guess you could say that I didn’t know what to do, and so I spent an unhealthy amount of time at the Laverdier’s Drug Store in Rockport, Maine in the summer of 1970 when it was sunny and beautiful outside and the blueberries were unsually scrumptious, but I don’t think about it that way, at least now, and I don’t regret it at all. It was a good thing and I was having a really good time and I wouldn’t change a thing even if I could.

But as the summer came to a close, luckily or unluckily, I decided to go ahead and buy Blood, Sweat & Tears one late August day for $3.99. I walked into Laverdier’s Drug Store, and without even looking at the cover, at least very closely, I picked it up out of the rack and walked straight over to the cashier and passed the Sky Bars
and Zero Candy Bars and 100 Grand candy bars without even considering them, which was pretty unusual for me because of my sweet tooth. And even though I have never plopped down money on a counter before for any reason, I did this time, PLOP, with my four dollars which I was very excited about as something to have in my pocket but even more as something to use to buy a Blood, Sweat & Tears album and still get a penny in change.

The next thing I know, the cashier is staring at my four dollars and saying: “Whoa, Honey, you owe me 15¢” because sales tax in Rockport, Maine in 1970 was 4%. Oh no!

$4.15! How could that be? I hadn’t even listened to my brand new Blood, Sweat & Tears album yet and already I was upset. Sales tax? What? I asked. OK, OK, and I paid it, even though it was quite a surprise. Good thing I didn’t slow down near the 100 Grand candy bars. And from there on, things just got worse.

The next week was rainy all week and we lost our Basenji. The week after that I left for boarding school for the first time in my life and I was miserable and lonely for four whole years. I won’t go into the details, because being unhappy is really uninteresting. And it was unhappy/miserable, not horrible, like, say, Bangladesh. But still, miserable is bad enough, and I will say, though, that I left my Blood, Sweat & Tears album at home, since I didn’t think that they should have to go through boarding school just because I did because it hadn’t done anything wrong and it didn’t deserve it and it had already made me happy for two weeks even though it was raining and I missed my Basenji.

And so I only got two weeks to listen to the new Blood, Sweat & Tears album before I left for boarding school. On the other hand, I was miserable in boarding school for FOUR WHOLE YEARS. Still, it was a terrific album, I don’t care what happened or what anybody says, even the people in boarding school who call it ‘facile’, uggh and no matter what or where I give Blood, Sweat & Tears my most heartfelt recommendation for any bona fide lover of tasty servings of jazz rock music (not fusion) with a dash of classical that inspired so many others like Chicago, Electric Flag, Chase, and the Ides of March even and suggest that you go out and buy it right away, listen to it a lot, look at the cover as much as you can, but don’t go to boarding school and if you must go to boarding school go for, say, an afternoon, or maybe, just the earlier part of one morning before lunch.*



* not four whole years

OZ = OZMOTO

f you go to the SuperCuts on Broad Street, ask for Oz. He will cut your hair real nicely. When you sit down in the chair he will ask, “What will it be?” Now here’s the important part:make sure you say: “I would like an Ozmoto today.”

Now an “Ozmoto” is a haircut of finger length all around the head, except a little bit shorter on the sides and that is it. If it weren’t a little bit shorter on the sides, it would just be a finger length haircut. It wouldn’t be an Ozmoto.

It would be a haircut. But you wouldn’t come to Oz for that. You would come to Oz for an Ozmoto. An Ozmoto is all that Oz cuts. Oz=Ozmoto.

And Oz has been cutting Ozmotos all his life. Back then his mother said, “I think I will name him ‘Oz’ and then she said, “I think, but I am not sure.”

But now as you sit down Oz says, “What will it be?” And you say, “I think I will have an Ozmoto today,” and Oz smiles and is happy his name is Oz and ten minutes later he says, “That will be $8” and you hand him $12 and he says,

“Thank you” and then he says, “Next” and an older gentlemen walks towards the chair as Oz brushes off the residue of yet another Ozmoto from the chair and then carefully, slowly, the gentleman ascends into the chair and as he sits down Oz says, “What will it be today?”

and the old man stops for a moment and pauses and then says, “I just don’t know today–what do you think?” when all eyes turn to Oz and the all eyes turn to the old man and then all eyes turn to Oz and you can barely hear the fire engine outside and the little boy with the Ozmoto

stops crying about his balloon that popped and stares at Oz as everybody stares at Oz and then at the old man and then again at Oz and the room is quiet and Oz’s doesn’t say anything but stands with his scissors in his hands right behind the chair and his hands start to tremble.