Ganja Smoke

Kim finishes mopping the kitchen and squeezes the water out onto the garden of marijuana sprouts.

“Hey,” calls Radiohead Robert from his decrepit lawn chair, “Don’t drown my babies.”

“They’re going to get us all in trouble, Robert.”

Robert is annoyed that Kim would suggest the risks are not worth the benefits. Smoking reefer is a holy act, a sacred tradition that is bigger than the police or the feds or the idiot mayor who is in bed with the prison contractors. Kim is annoyed that Robert would ignore the fact that pot is a powerful drug and to suggest it is suitable for everyone is pure ignorance. Some people benefit from lithium. But if you gave everyone lithium then you would have serious trouble. But no, a hippie tells you that pot is some kind of miracle drug and every deadhead in ten yards thinks it’s a doctor’s prescription. Hardly! More than half of those who smoke pot are completely incapacitated by it and suffer long term mental deterioration because of it. But the nature of the drug makes the deterioration hard to associate with the drug. It disguises itself as awareness of other factors like the police and the government. They’re the problem! One bong follows another and the kid’s ambition and ability to reason fades completely. The drug keeps him in a state of hypersensitive paranoia that he thinks is enlightenment. It’s a drug! Medicinal for some and totally debilitating for others. And Radiohead Robert thinks living in a scrap wood shack and broadcasting political rants authorizes him to prescribe drugs to everyone.

“You know, Robert, some of the kids at the meals need education more than they need to get high. In fact, getting them high is the worst thing you can do for them. They…”

“Relax, Kim. I don’t get anybody high. If they don’t smoke with me then they’ll smoke with someone else who’ll molest them. Is that what you want?”

“That’s not sound reasoning. You’re making a post hoc fallacy by projecting a worse conclusion as a substitute for your bad conclusion. They are equally bad and you can’t…”

“Blah blah blah. Why are we even arguing?”

Robert rubs his neck with his meaty hand. The revolution lost its power when the infighting started. Kim suspects this is what Robert is thinking.

“Because we have to reach consensus. The movement isn’t unified yet because we’re fractured into a thousand little movements. One part wants pot legalized. One part wants homelessness decriminalized. One part wants better housing, better health care, more representation, less money politics, women’s rights, immigrant’s rights, end the police state, more local agriculture, fewer chain stores…”

“I get your point. And that’s what the people want. And you got a magic wand that’s going to unite everyone?”

“Do I? Do I? Yes, Robert, I do.”

“Ok, good. Wave your magic wand.”

Robert traces a circle in the smoke he blows out of his mouth.

“Shazzam! The whole world is dancing to Kim’s tune. Oh, what a load of bullshit! Magic wand! Ha!”

“Bullshit to you, maybe. But I’m serious. Organization is what we lack because everyone is fucking stoned or drunk. Damn LSD killed the counterculture revolution is 1968. Why do you think the government was doing the tests?”

“Because they all out to get us,” mocks Robert as his eyes dart to the overgrown edges of the lawn where DEA agents could easily disguise themselves as bushes or hide in the overflowing trashcans.

“They don’t have to get us, Robert. They merely need to plant the poisons will keep us disorganized and quarrelling. This is how it’s always worked: The ruling class protects power by allowing the working class just enough freedom to destroy themselves with. In our case it’s freedom to argue about a fucking weed!”

“That weed brings people together. It unifies the counterculture revolution like…like the magic wand you think you have.” Robert holds up the joint he’s smoking like a torch to the heavens. “This makes family.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t. You’ve got your counter culture revolution. And I’m talking about mental liberation.”

Kim sighs and grinds her teeth when she feels she isn’t communicating. Robert notices this and is immensely satisfied that he has irritated her. He deliberately picks something out of his teeth with a yellowed fingernail to demonstrate his disdain.

Kim’s neck tendons bulge as her blood pressure reaches maximum velocity. “Ok. I’m getting angry and I can’t continue this conversation. You need to get your facts straight. This isn’t my revolution. I’m taking part in something that you only see from the outside. You aren’t being helpful. I mean, I feel neglected and ignored. It’s important that when I have meetings with other people they aren’t daydreaming or fixating on the sound of a retractable pen. Why isn’t that clear?”

”Whatever. Just don’t destroy my plants. Please. I work on them all winter in the greenhouse and you dump your dishwater on them. Be considerate.”

“Considerate? When have I ever not been considerate?”
”Just now when you tossed your dirty water on my smoke. I know you’re doing it on purpose to fuck with me but I’m not playing your games. I’m not passive. I’ll fight back.”

“See, these are the disagreements we can’t afford.”

Kim turns around and stomps back into the house.

Dos Amigos

This is where a video of me and Chicken Man eating burritos would be if I had real internet service. The chicken man seemed to have a hard time with his fire hot burrito as it blew him out of his chair and led me to call the fire dept. with this old timey telephone mounted fire box that was before cell phones made us all so high tech. This works by pulling down that white door and waking up a mouse with a bell on his neck. The mouse runs up the wire and down to the fire station (it's trained) and wakes up the firemen. The firemen check and see that this was mouse #33 and so they know where to go. That's how it worked before cell phones ruined everything.
This is also where the video of me losing horribly to a Virginia rigging expert based at the shipyard would be.
"Haven't had no ass in 54 days. Haven't banged nothing but my fucking fist," he said as he lined the 8 ball up.
"Mama's waiting."
He slammed the winner into the corner pocket and sent me packing.

Step back in time with me as yet another anachronism can be found on the east side of the old mystery spot on State Street. Yes, a kind of emergency homeless shelter known as the Richardson's Launderette. This old fashioned name brings back memories of colonial times of nearby Strawberry Banke. I also want to relate an anecdote ol' Brad told me once of sitting on a curb across the street from the launderette on a hot summer day and a woman coming up out of this sunken, crooked building carrying a plastic basket full of laundry. She wiped sweat from her brow and shuffled off in flip flops.
"That's Portsmouth, to me," admitted Brad and I completely understand. Some images are too perfectly formed to be forgotten. They represent more than the moment and when I walk past the launderette I don't think of the laundry, I think of Brad's anecdote of the iconic Woman doing Laundry on a Summer Day. It's like a Winslow Homer Painting in my mind and Brad is sitting watching the woman walk out of the launderette.

Now, the laundry exists but Richardson's Market has changed hands into some brand name coffee slinging place with no character or spirituality. So the sign remains of a ruined empire. I once worked at the market but I never did my laundry here. Now I see it's cheaper than the place by Pic 'N Pay so I'll be back. Of course you can't leave your laundry unattended or you will be replacing it. I saw vomit on the floor when I went and checked the prices. There are like 3 parking spaces but everything is pay parking down this way now (I just paid my ticket at the city hall and took some food bank bread as a consolation prize) so they do have to guard their turf.

Leave it to a therapist to make you want to see a therapist

My father called and was worried I'd become an alcoholic in the last week. His scare tactics fell on deaf ears as I have little in common with the drunks who were probably bipolar with post traumatic stress disorder and other problems when they were his clients in the therapy obsessed '70s.
"Oh, you've got one very important thing in common." 'ol dad chortles, because he's so cleverly set the trap and sprung it on me. I've walked right into the devious psychological pit he has so diabolically dug!
"Wha? I do? What do you mean?"
I'm flabbergasted as he lurches into his routine like a tired old stripper on a worn stage, gripping a greasy pole, completely ignoring that I'm more interested in the broke hobo crying in his drink next to me than the worn and saggy flesh under the threadbare nylon nighty.
"You're drinking...and they're drinking."

Wow, I'm just blown away at how perceptive this man is. What an analogy! They were drunk, divorced, suicidal and weeping on his leather couch, and I amuse myself with a post about drinking that may or may not be true. Boy, that framed diploma on the wall is like a key to my very soul. Made a living getting people to talk about themselves? Really? Could read people like an open book, I'll bet. Sure. My worries just tumble away every time he calls. I feel refreshed and rejuvenated! And I specifically wrote that these tales are for entertainment purposes only...not as a way to accumulate third hand anecdotes to compare me with the fucking mentally ill. Christ, I'll eat my hat if every one of his patients isn't a raging drunk right now...or dead by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the skull. Why don't you buy me a pack of gum and show me how to chew it? Every time I bury the hatchet he digs it up and stabs me in the back saying it's for my own good. God, I hope someone laughs about this one day.

I gotta have a stiff drink.

$1 a day

Woke up and the birds were singing like a Nat King Cole song. I'm going downtown and make a million dollars, I thought. I'll play guitar on Market Square. So I dressed up like a '70s pimp and was almost out the door when the phone rings. At this point it could be anyone from the phone company stopping service to the board of humane treatment of chickens. It turned out to be Tiffany, the Labor Ready minx who lured me into one of the worst tickets ever during last week's storm. But it's beautiful out and I had my guitar on my back.
"We need you. Can you get here?"
"Ah, baby, I got plans."
"This is good work. Servpro needs you back. Come on."
I almost cracked again because I do need guaranteed money and playing guitar on Market Square is a guaranteed disturbing the peace ticket. But then I remembered the crossroads guys, the tales of jail and methadone, the mixed martial artist guy who I pissed off with my philosophical treatise of Hannah Montana. And mostly I remembered that FUCKING $40 check that I got after 6 straight hours on my knees digging at soaking wet carpet pads in a stinking basement full of wet clothes. $40 that vanished into vodka and quinoa wraps. It's an absolute insult and at least I could drag my feet...maybe if she offered me a minimum $50 or $10 an hour.
"I don't know..."
"Come on, Oggy."
"I'm sort of busy...."
"We need you."
She wasn't going to offer me shit so I said no.
"I've got plans."
She hung up. I felt a bit guilty because turning down a job, even on a Saturday, means I become dirt to them. I'm no longer reliable. I'm not the go to guy. When you get calls from Labor Ready that means you are in the upper class. And when you reject a job from Labor Ready that means you are worst than scum to them. It forces them to call people on parole. It also means my chance of getting Tiffany to agree to a date just plummeted.

So I went downtown and played on the sidewalk for three hours and made $1. I played all the Mexico songs I learned but I didn't have a place to put the money. It was practice mostly and I saw one of my fans down there so it wasn't wasted time. I did see a servpro truck pass me with miserable faces staring out. Maybe on Monday I'll go in and take a job washing cars. Or not.

Then it was time for 7 brides for 7 brothers, that musical tale of kidnapping and true love in the Oregon wilderness. The barn dancing scene is spectacular. One of the brothers is a ballet dancer who does vaults on two beams while spinning a girl in circles. I'm so jealous.

Number of words written for my Santa Cruz novel: 0

spontaneous prose

I mentioned that when Chicken man Ken and I were barred from entering The Press Room we held a mini protest and read a poem on the street. The bouncer was not amused or entertained.
"We're with the band." I moaned.
"The band is already playing."
"I don't hear anything. Let me in."
"No."
"I'm going to have your job!"
blah blah blah...

But now two days later I'm wondering, what did I read? Because my Portsmouth Poem II for Ken's enjoyment and pianistic talent was still in my apartment...I never took it with me though I printed it out intending to practice our performance. So...what was I reading? This was in the back of my mind for two days and I seriously thought I was loosing it. Maybe I recited the Portsmouth Poem from memory. Or maybe I improvised something...that's possible. or maybe...wait...what is this crumpled piece of paper stuffed into my leather jacket? It's a street map of Laconia, NH and...on the back...oh, my. Is this what I read? Yes, it is. Written by two different hands I see this ragged poem was composed on the street or in a truck with a bottle between our legs, or maybe at a bar where we would be soon evicted from. I'll scan it in one day so you can see what we produced...but since that won't help you read it I will now translate.

First, you must imagine the scene of Daniel Street, me and Ken holding each other up as the bouncer bars our way, revelers in green walking by, pushing past into the bar ("Why are you letting them in?" "They aren't plastered." "Bullshit!) and so we read this out loud, yelling, stumbling over words, asking to get arrested. Have I painted the picture? I will remind everyone that I have had far more days that were nothing like this one so don't get all Woodrow Wilson on me.
Now for the text by me and Ken:

Here I sit in the hands of company that may
have or not destroyed the next job I am scheduled to paint.
"Do you have an acoustic piano?" he asked (With a camcorder in the client's face) as we took the check from the bloated bloke.
We anxiously sped off to the bank in which the check was drawn.

We reached the cashier + made the trade and broke the system of red headed sluts and cunts and the other jailed men we forgot in our time. The check was not canceled and so we are now obligated to do the work. And so we will, in torn jeans and on borrowed time. We walk the brick sidewalk and take down the wall-eyed common man. Flags wave but the station house is empty except for forced laughter and tears.

But yet for the grace of my lack of better judgment my ego swells with the thought of bringing down the press room as I pulled out my verbal shank and stab your ears with my beckoning voice that will tatter your broken soul, rendering it useless. Forgone opportunities has me not for my own good.

The bridge is up and the water is high. The lions are in town.