i dont care what step of the program i'm supposed to be in, i don't owe any of you an apology.  Whatever I did, I must have had a damn good reason. 

To the guy who took a shot at me in the shaky's parking lot on Santa Monica last thursday, I don't apologize for tripping your kid, because I didn't do it on purpose to begin with.  Even though he was making a racket on the damned whack-a-mole machine while I was trying to watch the game - the machine wasn't even working, for chrissakes.  Any kid old enough to sit on the big-boy chair should have the brain capacity to understand when a coin-operated machine is out of order.   But no, your wunderkind thought it best to take the foam hammer and smash the shit out of the machine, screaming with whatever rage he must have suppressed by having you as his white trash father.    Nice parenting letting him wander the resturaunt to annoy the rest of us so you could finish your pitcher of domestic swill, you neanderthal.   Anyway, he tripped because his shoelaces were untied.  Maybe instead of taking a swing at me you should be out finding a third job to get the kid some velcro, asshole.   Ok, so maybe I said a few things I shouldn't have but I doubt it's nothing the little darling can't hear at home once you've knocked back a few.   I doubt he even knows what an abortion is, anyway.

To that "woman" who kicked me outside the frolic room on hollywood boulevard, you don't own the sidewalk just because you use it as a business office.  I'll thank you to keep your stretched-out high heels on the floor of some john's chevy impala, where they belong.  it's a free country - i can pass out anywhere i damn well want to.

To the make a wish foundation, screw you bastards sideways.  I never said I'd actually visit the kid.  I don't do burn victims, sorry.  You didn't want me there - one peek and I woulda yacked all over the place.  I can barely watch CSI let alone carry on a conversation with a human mcnugget.  besides, I sent him a glossy and a box of ring dings.  Maybe I forgot to sign the glossy but his parents are just gonna put the damn thing on Ebay once he kicks, anyhow.

hold on, phone...

gotta run, im late for a card game -

w

To those who read my first post, please disregard as I was in something of an altered state.  It's been known to happen and I've stopped fighting the impulse.  We are as we live and I live well.  Perhaps too well for what can be considered "normal" consumption.

Sure, I've got a lot of emotional baggage.  They're all a series of dented, old trunks - slapped with travel stickers and airplane tags from some fairly dark corners of the mind's eye.  They're dented, scratched and the chrome trimmings have lost their luster.  But they have character, damn it.  They're well-travelled.  And I for one don't see why I have to apologize for them or dump them on some sorry souls at the twelve-step program my employers forced upon me.

I don't drink to escape, I drink to focus.  To really gain introspection and listen to that little voice deep down in the recesses of my mind.  The one that says, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my friend.  Lust is in the loins.  Fear is in the mind, courage in the heart, and throughout -- liquor, resides warmly in the belly."

Sure, I've experimented with everything - sex, drugs, bathtub gin and splitting my personal atoms.  None have provided much happiness, but they've all opened one kind of door or another, allowing me to find continuous, ever-deepening levels of the architectual wonder that is me.  Other doors have opened, too.  Cell doors, unemployment doors, rehab doors, and doors at the Bellagio hotel in Vegas.  Ask for Regina at the southwest bar, if you want your toes curled for three hundred bucks and a quick stop at the buffet.

But listen, I don't condone abuse of any kind.  This is my ratty existance and I don't try to make it sparkle for anyone.  Truth is, there's a lot of dried vomit and lost weekends.  But hell, my fur's always been matted.  Ain't nothin' gonna comb those knots out now.  I've lived a full life.  An early career that still stretches out before me like an unpainted canvas just waiting for the next delicate stroke, a library of personal observations and well-kept journals that shall someday make up my finest work, a biography that shall unpeel my orange for the world's consumption, and a body of personal and public recordings of spoken-word poetry and lounge tunes that will go down as smoothly as the highball I hold in my hand.

I also have a few ex-wives, speaking of baggage.  Dear Maggie - probably the most popular of the bunch, she's made a lot of press with me over the years.  Our infamous tet-a-tet and subsequent shitstorm at Spago, which made the papers after literally lighting the place on fire -- not to mention the debacle at the "Ally McBeal" wrap party, when my bethrohed saw fit to blow Harrison Ford under the buffet table while I was passed out in the bandstand.

Hey, what can I say.  We both live passionately.  And even though we're thrice divorced and I'm glad I've shed another few pounds of fat I find myself chewing on a stogie and rheuminating on the aroma, which minus a dash of cling-hold hairspray conjures the image of her. 

The smell, the taste...  The feel of her eyes on my back as if she could thrust a knife, and then spinning to find her lips pressed against mine, the passion overwhelming both of us as we claw our way to the floor and wrestle for our very lives as we struggle and then relent in each other's embrace, the hatred and lust swirling together like a sandstorm that leaves you blind but somehow ever unique, as any force of nature would.

I serenade you, Maggie.  The cracked glass on your photo as it hangs lopsided on my wall, your picture from the beauty queen days when things seemed so unspoiled, so virginal, so innocent.  I was ruined when you found me and perhaps I infected you, too.  To hold you was to be held as if by an angel, whose fingers did not burn upon touching me, who lifted me up like a lucifer and shone forgiveness upon me.  So much was possible back then.  It was a lofty height, and so dangerous was the fall.

I know you hate me, and it's no secret that I hate you too.  Your voice is like nails and your deception knows no equal.  And yet, you know me.  You see me more clearly than I see myself.  I am naked in your presence, and for that I can never let you go.  Not truly, for you are under my skin.

I’ve got you under my skin
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me
So deep in my heart, that you’re really a part of me
I’ve got you under my skin

I’ve tried so not to give in
I’ve said to myself this affair never will go so well
But why should I try to resist, when baby will I know than well
That I’ve got you under my skin

I’d sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near
In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night
And repeats, repeats in my ear

Don’t you know you fool, you never can win
Use your mentality, wake up to reality
But each time I do, just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
’cause I’ve got you under my skin

Return my calls, you evil bitch.

love and kisses,
Warren