May 2004 Archives

I should have gone to the bathroom when I had the chance.
I should have got myself a coffee before the coffee shop closed.
I should have not said that thing that I said.
I should have just let it go.
  Let it go.

Here's something you don't hear often enough at award shows: "I want to shout out to all my poops."

To say today's MVRT is in bad taste would be a little like saying BJ and the Bear were in a TV show called "BJ and the Bear." They weren't in the show. They were the show!

Abu Ghraib: The Untold Story, now playing on Monkey Vortex Radio Theater.

Two new audio-fun segments now ready for psychic absorption on ye olde Monkey Vortex Radio Theater: The World is Loud, a poem written and performed by Rodney K., and The Birth of Cheese -- a thick stew of fear, loathing, and dairy products, scripted by Jolene Phelps.

With the biggest smile, my headed-toward-four-year-old says:
"Daddy?"
And I say "Yeah?"
And he says:
"Since it's such a beautiful day, I love you."
And that line, complete with matching catchy melody, has been stuck in my headbone for nearly 72 hours now.
The perfect Cole Porter lyric, showing up nearly 40 years too late, at least from Cole Porter's perspective.

RIP Cole Porter.
Tony Randall too.

You could find us
by the smell of cheap wine
in open-air plastic cups.

See, we'd walked into this sunny summer party
    unguarded booze
    them all in college
    us two in high school.
Strolling the lawn with our big red cups 
    held chest-high
    both hands.

We were alert and amazed.
Thick-haired and thin-faced.

Bobbing along
like tipsy rowboats.

Sipping small sips.

Invisible.
But not odorless.

My son wants
bacon made out of coffee
  for me and 
bacon made out of orange juice 
  for him.

Leave those pigs alone!

But keep the bacon coming.

A thing a day a written
thing a thought a memory
  a day it's not
  too much to
ask too much to 
do.

Shhhhhh. Monkey Vortex Radio Theater, now on the air. Take it for a spin (and let me know whatcha find confusing and/or broken), here.

In Florida, 
the land of the dead for me. 
All those memories of bouncing on 
  airboats through swamps, and 
  wandering around exotic bird parks, 
  and listening to King Crimson
    on the wide lawn
    under the wide sky
    by the reflecting lagoon.

And sometimes driving, sometimes walking 
over to my great aunts, and uncles, apartments 
  for bowl snacks and conversation.

There was that one time --
Meyer borrowed our walkman.
  Suddenly
  volume spun all the way up,
  all the way up
    he could hear again.
Oh my god such a smile.

All gone now, that gang.
  There were two Irvings.

And all alligators gone.
All tennis courts gone.
All rec centers gone 
  with miles of immaculate green felt pool tables.

Key West too.

And Florida is for me.
The land of the dead for me.

I want to build a house
with Richard Brautigan 
  up on the third floor.

Looking out a large window
at open land
  hands on the windowsill.

Wearing that old hat
that old vest
  those old glasses.

He looks good.

Political aside: 24 hours after my all-imprudent edgewise post, below, big-time pollster John Zogby arrives late to the dinner party. But wait: we're wearing identical sports goggles! Confused? Engraged? Perhaps a little...peckish? You should be. Read more about it here.

Political aside: New all-imprudent edgewise post in which I manage to forget 8 out of 9 key Lessons of Dukakis and declare this the week GWB lost the election, here.

Do you know how many 
stars up there  --
  how many of those
    nighttime naked-eye stars-that-you-can-see
  are part of our local little galaxy?

Not off in the broader universe
representing some distant cluster.

Just local twinkle. 
Milky Way shine.

Do you know? 
  Do you?
    Do you?

How about all of them?

Motherfucker.

Political aside: New dailykos post, including a sub-scientific but partly binding poll on the scope, speed, nature, and intensity of Sean Hannity's directional decay, here.

My son cried out in the middle of the night
and I went to him and I picked him up

and I cradled him and we rocked for a bit
in the sliding chair
with a blanket over both of us.

And then either he peed on me or I peed on him.

I'm not quite sure.

But I think he peed on me.

And I was three-years old again
except now
I could clean myself
and I was laughing.

So I dealt with the pee
that he'd piddled on me
while my wife cleaned up
our boy and the chair.

Then we called it a night
and he slept straight on through
all dry, all clean.

Me too.

He was a rock star, wearing an orange t-shirt while the rest of the band wore gray.
Showing off his practiced dance moves on particle board.
Strumming a big guitar. Stomping one boot in rhythm.
Sending out bass and drum
to a crowd of sun-sweat smiley college boys and girls
who sat and stood and stared
and clapped and vibrated.

And the middle-aged guys were out in numbers.
Bald under favored baseball caps.
Pants stained from the gogurt
their kids ate that morning.

And everyone had bottled water.

And then the vibration closed
and cooled and stopped.

And the crowd roared at the rock star.
And they roared at each other
And they roared at themselves.

roar.

(image from the show -- with the orange and gray swapped out for white jumpsuits -- here.)

Political aside: New edgewise post featuring a genuine, imported Monkey Man quip, here.

Sudden roar.
Minature Thor.

Why'd that 
bee sting
my eye for?

(with a sideways nod to Robert Creeley)