My resume looks like the routing manifest for some displaced person after WWII. I am merely a high-tech migrant worker, following the harvests like Sisyphus rolling his rock. Rocking his roll. Locking and loading and finally going postal from the high bell-tower of a mind at once unhallowed and unhinged.

the following is part of an EGR I wrote on May 3rd of this year, but never finished, never sent. Been listening to Santana all morning, trying to kick the same old poison blues. Which is strange, because I'm in love today, so much to be glad about. She say I got nothing to fear. I tell her that too. We pass it back and forth. Say there's no monster living under our bed, whispering in our ears. It's a question of faith, or courage under fire, of love. So hey now, all you killers, put your lights on. Put your lights on...

Valued Readers:

Last night I went out and had a T-bone steak and eggs at Denny's. Because nothing else was open at that hour. Also because I love slumming with the underclass. Not bad. I was hungry, hadn't eaten all day. Forgot. So I ate and left. Not a lot of small talk.

On the way back, I figured I better pick up cigarettes, running low. So I go into this gas-and-groceries place near where I live and this thing off the Santana Supernatural CD is playing. Quoted above. Because that's the line. Beat of the street. Macho guitar, that voice. Uh! When you got nothin' and the world is burning: strut. Hot nights, straight-up love, no compromise. "I could change my life..." and the towering sneer as he lays it down: "to better suit your mood."

Or is that just me? The sneer? I mean, it was a huge hit, a Latin love song. Everybody grooves on those. I don't know. I'm reading my own trip into everything these days. Maybe it don't mean shit. Is this stuff in my head or really happening? Real, or the monster under my bed? Ah fuck... just forget about it.

Gimme your heart.

I was trying to remember the name of that gas-and-groceries place this morning. Go there all the time. Open 24 hours, etc. Couldn't remember. Today not anything like yesterday. Yesterday was overcast and I felt pretty good. Almost past it. Today it's sunny, perfect weather. The kind of day you want to be out there with someone. And I'm trying to sit on the speed. Check the rearview. Panic racing up the outside lane. So I get in the car to go get the name. That's all I'm looking for. A short ride. Nothing else to do. PDQ. That's what it's called. So there. Now you know. For completeness.

I go in. Might as well get something. Don't want anything. This time it's Nirvana doing Come As You Are. As you were. As I want you to be. Christ, I gotta get outta here. I grab a quart of Gatorade, the most artificial color I can find. Looks like anti-freeze, tastes like catpiss. As a friend. As a friend. As an old enemy...

Outside I walk to the edge of the store (just typed "to the edge of the story"), the grassy verge along the highway. A little stone table and bench to sit looking at the mountains. God, the mountains! What a day. Too beautiful. The ache in my chest is back. She's gone. For good. For ill. Why won't this stop? Let up?

I keep telling myself I've gotta get to work. On something productive. Bring in the bacon, put food on the table. Yeah, but then I say, what if there's nobody there to eat it? Be kind of a Pyrrhic victory then, huh? So I cop that my work right now is to write and keep writing. My work this week is to save my life. And what if it's not just this week you gotta worry about? I ask myself these questions. What if it goes into overtime? I keep thinking I've come to the edge of the world. Come to a place I can stand, if not quite yet stand still. But there's more. There's always more. Everything I know, I learned on acid. It all comes in waves, so roll with it. Roll with it. Let them pick you up and put you down. Feel into the swells. Keep rolling.

---

All those words I wrote said I love you come back. You know me, they said, but not all the way down. There's more to go. And I know you, but not all the way in. You say I don't know you at all. That I'm making it up. That I'm using your words and your silence against you. And in public. With strangers. With everyone looking. And this works against conversation.

What conversation?

"i'm out of time tonight, we spent three hours in the maternity ward getting tests done - everything's ok, just first pregnancy jitters

he should be locked up."

Blogging will get you through times of no sanity better than sanity will get you through times of no blogging.

This wisdom adapted from Fat Freddy of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Here's a brusque interview with Gilbert Shelton, the creator of F³B as well as Philbert Desenex, Hog of Steel, a.k.a. Wonder Warthog. Ah, sweet memories of youth!

"Also," I said, "since you're not paying me jack shit, I don't much care what I say. So this should be pretty relaxed."

Of course, it was no such thing. I proceeded to rave, froth and fulminate non-stop for over an hour. I told them I wasn't really Chris Locke -- they wouldn't know -- but that I'd just bumped into him downtown, and he'd promised me 20 bucks if I'd come here tonight and say whatever came into my head. I told them that the secret of my success was lying and making shit up -- and that there was a fine line between those two. Even I had no fucking idea what I was talking about. Not that that's anything new. I delivered strong opinions on matters I know nothing about, fabricated a revisionist history of the world economy since 1983, and laughed at all my own jokes. Sometimes the audience laughed along. I suspect to pretend they had the least clue why I was laughing. I sure as hell didn't.

We all learned something, I think. Me, that I can extemporaneously pontificate on any totally x-random bullshit and make people (or at least myself) believe I'm a bloody genius. They, that I should have been sedated and taken to a quiet place.

I found this email waiting when I returned to my cold, empty lair.

Dude,

You were fabulous, and I'm not blowing smoke up your Ying Yang either. That's was AWESOME! I hope we can get you again somewhere on down the line. I got so busy I didn't even get to buy a book from you, so I may be bugging you to buy one of your signed copies someday. Too bad you don't drink beers anymore, or I'd buy you a round or 20 and really pick your brain.

Ciao,
Sam Grothe
BWA Prez

I told him, no, I didn't drink, but that I do accept free dinners in 5-star restaurants.

By the time I got home, everyone I know was either asleep or under surveillance, so I couldn't indulge my growing phone jones. However, I did fill up several voicemail boxes from London to Lahore. As the Rolling Stones once noted, it's not easy living on your own, Jagger artfully underscoring the point: and it's a pretty hard thing....

However, I observe that this relatively minor complaint in fact represents a significant step forward in my glacial recovery. Having finally accepted that the fantasy world is my friend, I feel an orgasmic surge of unwarranted self esteem. Shit, a month ago I wanted to kill all sentient beings and stuff them for target practice. I wanted a bumper sticker that said "I Blew The Dalai Lama," contemplating with joy the fatal traffic accidents it would cause here in Boulder, Colorado. Which is btw where I live. For those of you who are new.

Apropos of nothing (see previous paragraphs), will somebody please send me some interesting fucking email before I go fucking batshit over here? Like I'm already not. But thanks in advance for understanding.

He writes: "One also assumes that RB and Her Anonymousity are okay with this teasing!"

Ask your momma, Frank. She told me it was cool.

"And of course," he adds parenthetically, "the underlying assumption to all of this is that the tree is actually falling in this particular forest."

Unsure as to which particular forest Frank has been frequenting of late, I can only surmise that he is speculating about whether "Her Anonymousity" a) exists, b) is a figment of my imagination, c) is the erstwhile newage artchick, d) is Dave Winer in drag, e) is sweet little Gretchen Pirillo, f) I have forgotten to take my meds again, or g) is my virtual dream lover for real with whose various body (mind, and other ineffable) parts I have unexpectedly yet utterly fallen in love.

The answer will be fully revealed (over her dead body, she says) in my forthcoming Dunghill Trope interview, on which I am already hard at work. No, really.

"Back to my bond analysis," Paynter ends the item.

Good idea, Frank. Glad I'm outta the market.

Relax [relax, relax...]
I need some infor-ma-tion first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?



CAPTION: coyote wants to help. he is skillful at finding pain. he thinks this is good. he does not understand that people do not always appreciate his skill. then they see him as an evil demon. coyote is lonely. coyote is sad. he has been looking for someone who is not afraid of his medicine. now he has found her. coyote is happy. he will give her many blessings. though some may seem a little weird at the time.