a girl slid off a bar stool at doyles + melted into the floor. an unsteady, lean-on-whatever's-within-reach hobble to the exit was in slo-mo + hysterical to watch. i put my hand on a table as i choked back a laugh. poor thing had no clue. tomorrow morning she'll be 'sick'. i sat next to an off-the-boat irish boy at the behan who had 7 empty pints of guinness in front of him lined up like clay ducks. he was counting + gulping + midway through #8 i asked: 'how can you get away with this + not be out cold?'. 'i'm tough' he squinted. as soon as he drained the last pint his head hit the bar like a brick. an older woman drinking giant buckets of cheap merlot was ok until she ordered 'just one more tiny li'l glass'. her phrasing clear as day until, when i checked back i got this: 'erm moumph frun grad ur'. she had crossed the slur river into neanderthal. an octogenarian + Very Proper Lady: high heels, sparkly blouse, exaggerated eye-liner (improperly applied + smeary) was on her way to the ladies room. a low heel cracked under foot. she grabbed a railing in the nick of time. a waitress asked if she was alright. 'i'm fine,' she insisted, 'just a wee bit tipsy'. after 'tipsy' paddled her way into the loo the waitress rolled her eyes: 'tipsy?! she's hammered!' funny how we pretend we're not destroyed when everyone else can see that we are. just try to convince a drunk he's been shut off for his own good. he goes ballistic + argues as if to persuade a jury of nuns. if they're cute you put up with the vomit potential in hopes of a score, but inevitably you shift away. not only because it's uncool or date rape tagged, you just can't deal with the slur, the wavering eyes, the thick fingers. pretty becomes not so pretty + you make your way home alone. on the other hand, one lame night in a glitzy bar in amsterdam called 'it' as in 'look at it, she's gorgeous!' i'm drinking + staring + hoping + worked up all at once in this dutch playground crammed t the gills with the young + the hot. a skateboard hero with a watercolor moustache is so drunk he 's propped up like a discarded doll. his legs hang wide, his arms weigh a ton, his hands engorged. he slouches against a mirror wall, nursing a vodka. every thirty seconds he belches. you can tell because his cheeks puff out - 'bluh.' his lips are parted + slippery behind a puke pout, puke breath, puke skin. one chartreuse bubble floats sadly in front of a novocain face. i want to rip his clothes off but i keep to myself. 'it' wouldn't go over big at 'it'. it is drunk.

because you sit on it for hours, it is rarely clean or smooth or pretty. ass topography is speckled with pimply red dots + cuneiform hairs. a hammock of water balloon flesh hides the under-ass parenthesis + worse - a shit chunk gets caught in ass hair, dangling like a tick in the jungle. a pristine shiny clear-skinned tight ass is a rare find indeed. it doesn't survive much past 14. which is why, after a few beers, a martini, a weed hit you blur the view + make it right. you ignore the spots, the dingle berry, the saggity ass + give it a squeeze or a bite + as for your very own back porch - it is next to impossible t take in. a twist in front of a mirror can offer a 3/4 snap, but gives no indication of how broad of beam or distended one has become. the stand-above-the-mirror-on-the-floor approach reflects an alien ass crack high on spider legs, walnut balls, a cock tip in a peek-a-boo, sweaty bush. without a friend with a camera you'll never see your fat ass the way it really looks. a friend of mine twirling out of the shower felt a soft slap on the back of her upper thigh only to realize that it was delivered by her very own cheek. a blubbery wet buss. it made her laugh, but she was horrified. i think asses begin, unless belonging to an athlete or a ballet dancer, to find gravity in the late twenties + even if it's a tight ass, it becomes a dirty ass. it's been sitting on itself long enough to accumulate a collection of creases + black heads. if yr lucky yr boyfriend or girlfriend will pop n scrub n smooth you out like a soap stone. but the thing is, no matter how disturbing this part of the body might be, we're interested. we look. maybe face first, or tits, or crotch, but a nice shot of a nice ass in blue jeans will not be ignored. a kid walks by, you turn + you look (nervous that you might be caught + hoping at the same time he wants t see if you wanted t see + you both hide behind a fluttering japanese fan + a faux 'what you lookin' at?' pissed-off face). still, you look. you always will. the way an ass walks is an action miracle. male or female. a big hefty left, right, left ass-in-a-dress is a fellini spectacle worshiped for centuries. + how many tourista walk all the way around the statue of david just t catch a glimpse of that forever young rear end? maybe, unless you're a total pedophile, a dirty ass, a be-zitted bum, an ass crack with pubic seaweed sprouting out like gunfire, is hot as hell. we all have our favorites. we all fantasize about how so n so's will look out of shorts or stepping out of the shower. we can't help it. we even watch each other watching. it gives us a snort. still, there are some asses impossible to imagine. on some, there's no movement whatsoever, or what appears to be no ass at all, just a plumb line from upper back to legs, or, weirdly, an indentation - as if there's a vacant lot where on others actual chub bounces along with a smile. i would kill t examine, like an archeologist, one of these ass negatives in the flesh.

'if i tell you this you won't tell anybody else, ok? cuz i've never told this to anybody ever'. i promise when they ask, but why me? is it the uncle homo syndrome (he hasta be discreet cuz he had t hide his 'nature' all those early years + will get it about secrecy')? do they unload because i have a rep? i leak + they want it told to others. they want the dead fish pried out of their gut + onto the street. these confessions remind me of the criminal who is driven to tell a girlfriend, a cell mate, a lawyer, a brother so that he or she will deliver him from the prison of his guilt. so yes, sometimes i break my promise. i slip a velvet whisper into a safe ear just because the secret is nasty, or funny, or impossible to keep. i insinuate permission. on the other hand i hide a handful of privacies who's lock box has never ever been violated. some are mine. some belong to friends, or strangers. they live inside my head like a child hiding in the basement, safe but wary. secrets begin in childhood. they begin that first time you realize that mom n dad are not god. that they don't know everything there is to know about you. they don't see you walk out of a barber shop with a comic book that doesn't belong to you. they don't catch you flipping thru dad's playboy unmoved by marilyn's juicy tits. they don't know what happened between you + your next door neighbor out in the barn. you are out of range from mon n dad's all-seeing eye of saruman. it began for me when i realized that santa claus was a fiction. that he smelled of booze + had a voice like uncle karl. i didn't say anything about it because i hated the truth. i didn't bring it up with my sisters because they were younger + living the magic of neverland. i kept doubt to myself until i met my first best friend. the first kid i told things to i never told anybody else. with whom i did things i never did with anyone else. things that were secret. secrecy is a part of love. my first best friend was the first person i ever fell in love with even if i couldn't use those sacred words. i thought about him when he wasn't around. i felt differently when i touched his arm + when he leaned against me. i was hurt when he criticized. my heart leapt when he laughed. it was the secret of how i was with him that changed me, made me feel new, re-invented, bursting with light. which is why, later on, a love affair got it's charge from secrecy, from a dream world enshrined in a cathedral built, brick by brick, with the person you loved. why, early on, i didn't want to use the 'l' word until i was sure. i didn't want t jinx it with a silly word. i didn't want my friends to be in on what was happening or to break love down into shards of idiotic transparency. if all secrets are known then magic vanishes - torch light exposing worms + rust + insects.

we all know what this means: the olde finger up the olde bung hole. we think about it on the way there. will he forget? would we remind him? does he look forward to it, or does he resist? will there be a smudge spot left on the paper afterwards to be scraped up by an orderly? will he, this time, find a brocoli-sized nub in there t be burned out, sliced up + scare the be-jesus out of us? will it be time for that loathsome unit, the black snake? trapped for days with nauseating gulps of gator aid, cvs enemas + a nurse reminding us that 'the drugs are awesome'. so you think about it. all of it. if time is on your side, or if it's not. + you realize, as the clock winds down, that these visits will increase. that bad news will begin to happen to your body. that fear will intrude on sane reflection. that a sunny day might rain. so far i've been lucky in the doctor/diagnosis department. for the last 10 years i've had the same primary with the same 'you're fine' salute. he's thorough. he spends more than the alloted h.m.o. hurry-up, has seen me through minor worries + reads me like a country doc. like the honest auto mechanic who gets the difference between silly + serious, my guy never advocates procedures or drugs that won't heal or help. sadly, he transfered to florida. good for him. not good for me. my most recent annual is with a new dude who has, as the president might say, a 'funny name'. as soon as he comes through the door t check me out in my reverse blue-green house dress, my heart jumps. this guy drop dead resembles the phony interns i've seen on porn sites. the ones who 'examine' their hot young patients - heart, lungs, glands - only to eventually jerk them off into oblivion. the 'patients' mildly resist until they let go all over the place. so i'm doubly in doubt about my new guy with his long eyelashes + borderline lisp. 'uh oh' i'm thinking, 'the prostate check is gonna be weird'. he snaps on the rubber glove like nurse ratched + is in + outa there like a mouse to the cheese. whoa! the doc has skills. he wraps up the look-see, says i'm in good shape + informs me that in one year's time he, like my previous primary, will be moving on. i'll have t hunt n peck another fella (or woman?) t do the probe. based on a name. a funny name. 

i know. some do, some don't. or they say they don't. but they do, don't they? everybody farts. (isn't that an r.e.m. song?) anyhow it is not who farts but who thinks they're funny + who doesn't. my sisters do. my nieces + nephews don't. my (german) room mate does. my co-workers don't. my father did. my mother did not. she slapped me loud + hard across the face in a thai restaurant after i cut a string-of-pearls oinker. (i was in my 50's). she did not think it funny. except once when i blew a brown note into my cat's face. mum was sitting on the couch + peering over a magazine as i squatted + aimed my artillery inches in front of ralphie's little pink eraser. he squinted, edged a bit into the shit blizzard, wrinkled his nose + sniffed, as if reading a tea leaf. mum lost it. she doubled over. tears of laughter. i got her. just that once. so i guess even with the proprietary, a fart can make you laugh. it is one of the most unpredictable acts we humans are capable of. we never know, we can never predict what it will sound like, or how it will stink. like jazz, it improvises it's own vocabulary. i don't think i'll ever get over it. armpit blats were funny when i was 5. sour puffs in high school english were historical events. in the sickening incubation of an enclosed fuselage everyone is suspect + grim. in a noisy bar egg n beer conspire to force you to the floor or out the door. in elevators you foist them off onto an infuriated friend. holden caulfield cut one in chapel + he was in a book you had t read. i doubt i will ever get over doing, hearing, talking about, waking up to these foul snorts out the back door. keeps the kid in all of us present + accounted for. embarrassed? well once - tho it's more of a shit than a fart story. on the dance floor at villa victoria, daisy, a black queen, asked if i wanted t do a bump. why not? a teensy pebble of coke won't make me crazy + maybe i'll transform into a dancin' fool. so i did it. right then + there + immediately had t go. had t go bad before i shit myself. there was only one unisex piss pot + this was an emergency so i cut in line, squirreled in + locked the door. i KNEW how bad it was going to be. i'm not sure if it's the shit itself, the gas, the combination or the effect of cocaine on nostrils that does this, but i can assure you it is just The Worst Smell Ever. sure enough, the results were ungodly. i batted at the fumes to disperse them + planned on returning t daisy + the hot pump of the dance floor, but, as i exited (slamming the door in hopes that it would kick back the smut smog) a line of 10 frantic queens were waiting t get in + bump themselves silly. uh oh. i ducked, arm in front of face like a chicago mafioso who doesn't want his picture in the paper + bolted for the door just as les girls ricocheted like a paddle ball - a fanfare of shrieking, fanning of noses, coughing + gasping for air. i'm outed, flat out outed. i squirmed through the exit + made my way home, tail between rubber legs. the moral: shitting + farting never amuses all the people all the time.

you're in a dungeon, strapped to a table with electric alligator teeth snapped onto your balls. a guy in an executioner's mask has his hand on the trigger + he ain't a dominatrix, he's a motherfucking sadist who will get you t say anything, do anything, fuck anything. if you could 'jump' to a safe haven, you would, wouldn't you? i would. regardless, isn't it true that we're always in the right place at the right time with the right situation or person? what i'm stabbing at here is the realization (increasingly as i get older) that all experience benefits the Self in spite of all-too-human grass-is-greener complaint. even when it seems the opposite. even when we wish to be almost any other place than right here right now. ('you ok?' i ask the dishwasher. 'i just want t get the fuck outa here + go home.') but he can't. he has t finish up or quit. that's how we learn. that's how we grow. the unavoidables we resent + confront + find our way past. a hairdresser friend of mine put it this way describing parents who hope to protect their kids from hurt + harm: 'we can't keep their lessons from them even if we wanted to.' case in point - i've been a waiter at the same joint for 20 years. my friends can't believe it. 'are you kidding!? 20 years?!' or from a returnee - 'are you still here?' is that running in place or is that running in place? whatever, i love the job. i always have. i actually look forward to going to work. the unpredictability of the customers. the absurd soap opera gossip employees whisper. kids you watch like a high school teacher grow up + fly the coop, irritated by the parents once revered. the see-saw variable of tips you make on any given night. the hard elbows of football dykes. hey, i could have left town. i could have moved t paris. i could have had any number of shit jobs around the globe + seen the rest of this wild planet + been the richer for it. but i didn't. i'm here. the archbishop of rationalization has traveled far in jamaica plain. of course one thing i could NOT do was endure a corporate gig, let alone qualify for one. up early, home on a cocktail slide, freaking out the boss with my oddball 'artistic' behaviors. not me. this is where i am. it's where i belong. the tape has not run out on what make's the job + the town new over + over again. i love it here + i've come to accept that i need t live in one place long enough t get the music done. if i played guitar? maybe a different story. carry it on my back. but i don't. i can't. i look really stupid playing that thing. so here i am, a faux buddha under an elm tree.

'rick, that song on the radio, what is it?' 'what song? i can't hear it. (+ if i could, i wouldn't know what it is anyhow - deaf ears - too many hours on stage with screaming egos + guitars). the real problem: i know next t nothing about about the history of music. big time songwriters ladder-up the bunyan shoulders of beloved predecessors, right? you can tell from the interviews. 'oh, yeah. when i heard ______________ for the first time, i knew, deep down, that i had t...' so they listened. they got it. they danced on the hum wire of artist-to-artist umbilical. birth by proxy. when a 'new' song shivered out of 'em it was often a tip of the hat t bygone music warriors. when something familiar reaches my ears i recall neither the name of the tune nor the artist or worse, the wrong name or the wrong artist. i stroke my chin as i watch earnest fans bump, grind + sing, word/melody perfect, along with tunes blasting in a bar or on the radio or in ear buds + i'm flabbergasted. how do they know this shit? as if they ARE the song, reliving the exact time + place when it first hit the heart, replaying the timeless camaraderie of 'hey, we were there, you n me babe, right? remember?'. the smarm that creams all over the tune choices for weddings, start up relationships, the death of loved ones. but for me it's a wash. i can't make out the words for the life of me. i wish i could, i do, but tinitis combined with the study task it would take to educate would turn it into a homework assignment. listen to the tune, absorb it, master it, memorize it. i don't. i won't. i like t hear from someone else about a song. about how it was recorded. why it was written. why it holds meaning for my friend. but that's the end of it. it's my beer allies, my co-wokers, or even total strangers that compel me to write music. it's their stories, failures, troubles, love labors that appeal to my vampiric stenographer. it's them, my pals, not the famous, that get me. + movies as shortcuts t actual life. 'be here to love me' (the doc about townes van zandt) became the inspiration for a tune i dedicate to him even as i know next to nothing about his music or lyrics. + another thing? i 'see' picture-scapes when i write. sound track hallucinations. (it's always been like that, starting in college when i dropped acid, locked myself in a tower with an upright, closed my eyes + improvised whatever cerebral celluloid flickered by on the eyelid screen.) i guess you could say that basically i write out of my ass, not from music hall or r+b or folk or rock throwbacks. not because cole porter wasn't a true genius, or joni mithcell can say love like eskimos can say snow in 10,000 ways. ok, i do know a little about a few of 'em, my own particular music heroes. still, with rare exception, i don't know the tune, the singer, the genre, the words. it seems not to matter all that much. nick cave put it this way: 'there's a song walking down the street + if you don't shake it's hand, somebody else will'. it is like that. i'm like that. still it haunts me, my weak excuses for not knowing those who's work came before, thus enabling my part-time self image as a charlatan.

i had t go. i'd been t st particks t honor bobby. this was as critical a view. i dislike lines + crowds. i went t the sox victory parade in '04 + the first one for the pats in the snow. glad i went, but after waiting for hours on numb feet just t see the boats lumber by i was let down, bored, is-that-all-there-is-to-a-victory-parade? sure, it was good t plant my feet in honor of the hard-earned, long time coming, champs. t see the rock star athletes on display in real time. but once was enough. on the other hand i liked being in line t hear obama speak during the campaign. the people, thousands upon thousands, psyched, inspired, happy, up - a part of something bigger than my routine, as if all were one. that was the last time i saw teddy. bellowing on stage t introduce the new torch bearer. i'd also met him, years back, in a bar. shook his generous hand. 'good t meet ya, senator...' etc. not a big deal but something never forgotten. on the way t the jfk library, on the T, looking out the window it seemed as if a lot o' guys looked like him. overweight, chin up jaunty, toothy grin, eyes on the sky, feet on the ground. but they weren't. no one was or ever will be. not in my lifetime. the line was as diverse racially as it could be in this ol' whitey town. there were tears wiped away under sunglasses. eyes downcast or uplifted or both. kind thoughts about strangers. i was gonna read t pass the time, but didn't. i quietly inched towards the under sail like library with the rest. the kennedy kids thanking us for being there, for coming t honor their grandfather, for loving the world he believed could be better even as dark forces conspire against it. inside the smith room where i'd last seen krugman speak, lay the great man in state, surrounded by soldiers who didn't blink, by members of families who'd lost love ones on 9/11, who'd been connected to the senator in loss, by members of the clan who sat quietly on spindly metal chairs. we had t be there. all of us. to do this. to honor this storm of a man who outlasted so many hurricanes in his personal + public life. we need him now more than ever. every time, every time i hear the words: 'and the dream shall never die' tears fill my eyes.

one of my favorite things ever is t have the Big Talk. the kind of conversation that instead of being an ever repeating ego echo, climbs a discovery ladder. each side of the conversation listened to fully, towering like a sequoia. not the predictable internal prep for one's own commentary or anecdote, but where listening is true + speaking frankly matters. wild ride carnivalesque jazz jiz over coffee or before the slur hits the booze wall or before a pot high paranoia overwhelms the senses. here the appearance of actual communication infests the vibe ahead of seduction + real talk is real talk is real. but of late i think, especially at work where a mere 'hey', or 'what's new?' or 'good t see ya' can carry, in spite of its cliche off-the-hook flippancy, emotional weight. in eyes you can read it, in voice you can hear it - the heartfelt interior. i used t disdain 'what's up, dude?' + short hand hi-5s, but not any more. of late i'm more apt t doubt the depth, the sincerity of my own late night spew. i join in with the not-as-simplistic-as-they-seem people who get more out of less, a world out of a worm. as a friend put it: ' don't say it, be it'.