Chronicles of the White Van Brigade : Froffeee Carpentry

For a week before burning man and since I’ve returned after it, I have been working as a carpenter’s assistant doing demolition.

In the hierarchy of manual labor I am slightly above those who hop into pick up beds in Home Depot parking lots and slightly below a skilled laborer’s apprentice.

The carpenter I work with is a 45 year old –fat- baldi-ng bug eyed

-coke still in the bottle tinted sort of rapist glasses-

 uneducated- sexually repressed-

 loud -gregarious –alcoholic

 with a lisp and a stutter and an inability to pronounce his R’s and he lives in total fear and absolute anxiety with zero self confidence. He is twitchy - his body movements mimicking his stammer erratic and all over the place. 

He is married with a child he loves and a wife afflicted with MS and has a heart of gold.

Obviously, this guy is my best friend.

There’s a whole story here and I am working on it called

 “Chronicles of the White Van Brigade”  

and in the meantime I am going to share some anecdotes, stories and wisdom that came from this experience.

The first is how I gave him his nickname –


“FROFFEEE”

So it’s my first day of work and its been heavy –

I’m cool because I’m cool –

and he is a fucking handful – non stop blabber –

telling me what to do then saying its wrong and telling me to do one thing and just as I get to doing the task he is asking me to hand him a tool that is two feet behind him and remember –

he isn’t just asking me he is hooting and stuttering and whoopin like buffoon baboon and im cool – but it’s heavy and I am fortunate that I am well trained in patience.

Day ends but not before lunchtime – I am on a Purium green juice cleanse so its lunch and I got the green drink and raw organic Turkish apricots and raw unpasteurized organic Spanish almonds and an avocado and he has gassed four mountain dews before lunch and has half a fucking bag of Doritos and two sandwiches with the most processed bread, most processed cheese and most processed meat and now a cherry pepsi and he’s looking at me like all silent and curious- like I grew ears where my eyes are supposed to be and then he peers down at my  lunch likes it is clan of Taliban fighters  and asks earnestly :

Wha wha wha what-are-you gay orsumpeen? (something)

I die laughing because that’s fucking hilarious and tell him that food is medicine and I am cleaning out toxins right now– losing weight and getting extra energy for work.

He just looks at me all bug eyed and chews his sandwich.  

Fast Forward to the end of the day :

It’s Friday and we are way out in the burbs and we pack up the white van and leave and hit a stretch of road for ten minutes and he gasses 3 pbr’s and pulls off into a liquor store to get red bull and jager – which he pronounces “laker”.

He fills a cup with ice and ‘laker’ and red bull and starts gassing it and hitting one-ees of some decent cannabis and he’s driving his white van not paying attention just running his mouth so excited that it is the weekend and he's stammering about total inane drivel when we see a woman on the sidewalk – African-american- maybe 19 – fat as can be and wearing black tights to prove it to everybody – and he starts honking like a retarded circus seal saying “FROFFFEEE – FROFFEEEEE”

and wacking me across the van with his big stubby arms –

“seedat?!! –seedatt!?!?!?!?!? FROFFFFFFFFEEEE!”

And I just don’t understand what he is saying as I don’t speak stutter that well and then it dawns on me

“Frothy? – like a cup of coffee?”

and he exalts

YEAAAAHHHH!

And I ask:

But………..

……………..Why?

And he looks at me like I am stupid again and says

“Everlybody knows dat~ when chicks wearl dem tights it rubs against der pussy and it gets all hot and schwolen.  FROFFEEE! “

And I lose my shit laughing as I live for the absurd and I cant catch my breath when he sees a more attractive African American woman on the street and gets back to barking like a dog that got kicked in the head :

“Loogadat schit loogadat schit I bet that schit is pink inschide !”

And he is not even looking near the road and I wonder if he can see through those glasses when he isn’t loaded and frothing but Im cool because I am cool and I know there is no threat here. 

I am crying laughing and it's not funny at all because this person is pretty fucking stupid and I still don’t stop laughing- I begin to cough-  I cant catch my breath-  until I do.

He gasses another two beers and now we are on what is “main street” in an affluent suburb where my parents live 10 minutes down the road and I know tons of people and have family that reside there and we are at a red light in his white van and the windows are down and he’s babbling and I am sort of ready to just be home and there is this coffee shop right out my door and it is nice out so people are on the sidewalk having drinks and there is an attractive mid 40s woman, well dressed with her 15-16 year old daughter at table 6 feet from my open window in this white van and she catches Froffee’s eye and he starts stammering away

“L-L-L-Loogahdem tittieesh loogadem tittieesh—ahhhhdem are nicesh ID SUCK DOUGHS”

and this woman can clearly hear it and she cant see him so instead she just looks at me like I am a freak and there is a only a 90% chance that someone I am related to knows this woman and her daughter and I am laugh because - fuck me this is out there and I dont think it is funny anymore I just want to go home.

Stay tuned for more White Van Chronicles with Froffeeee---- one of the most powerful teachers in my life.

Burning Man Before I Go

Burning Man Before I Go

I go to a lot of festivals  and see a lot of live music. Music stirs this life drink and I love people and love to celebrate and I love live music  and I am here to party in this life – music stirs it and dancing exalts it and I am like ten feet tall at Tasmanian speed when I am at a festival celebrating life and art and people.

I think I’ve figured out why that is, what draws me to it – because out of all the millions of ways I have changed over the years since I was 16 – I have always liked places with music and people and art and communing with it all – why though ?

It believe it is because we are all dreaming when we attend these and I am not talking about the falling endlessly one or the cant run fast enough one but I am talking about life.

We live life awake and dreaming – it is ours to do. It is our intents and our desires that wrap up our actions and our thoughts and dream this little dream called Life on Earth. We each have a dream – even if we don’t know it – totally oblivious – it doesn’t matter – we still live each day – that doesn’t change and it is individual – each life is our own.

AND, we are part of a collective dream – in a million different ways. At the most core level, we are all humans – we are all one – and that collective dream, collective consciousness is this dream Earth. And then there is the fabric of it all – ways we break down or identify – traditions, backgrounds, politics, sports.  Each fan base, each participant brings their own dream to all that – and it has it’s own collective consciousness.

AND THAT IS WHY I LOVE MUSIC FESTIVALS ( I prefer the jam band, bluegrass, reggae or bass laden electro ones) – the overwhelming majority of the people that go to these things are filled with excitement, love, joy, laughter and celebration- to break it down so you smell what I am cooking –

PEOPLE GO TO THESE THINGS TO PARTY – TO ENJOY LIFE – that is most people’s dreams at these things- so the atmosphere is (usually) overwhelmingly electric and alive with love and dreamers running around to the beat of the music.

That MUSIC -spinning up that collective dream again.

And oh how beautiful that is to experience – tuned into the rhythm of it all- feeling all that love and all that laughter in that one place.

I am not saying you cannot have a bad experience there, or that there aren’t sketchy people- too damaged to participate so they ruin it for a few – that’s life – however, the overwhelming feeling is of feeling – experiencing, living and DREAMING. People want to remember that one set that smoked or the jokes with their friends or the countless strangers that become friends over a short weekend.

We all contribute this dream and when it's rock solid and golden it makes us all FEEL GOOD.

SO WHY HAVE I NOT BEEN TO BURNING MAN ?

In the beginning  -like when I came to Burning Man awareness was probably 2005 and I just wasn’t interested.

I was working long hours and chasing money and success and having different type of fun than live music and festivals and it wasn’t until 2009 until I started getting the -

“OH you haven’t been to Burning Man – YOU NEED TO GO”

(we have all encountered these people )

“Oh you’re going to LOVE it – YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW”

And I get it – people are excited about the things they love but tone it down, love- because I love the things I am doing too and you don’t see me telling you need to do anything I do.

Then there was the extreme of that Burning Man attendee encounter-  super duper crunchy guru loving yoga chick telling me I know nothing because I haven’t been to Burning Man.

I would froth at the mouth at that one – sideways looking like-

This chick hasn’t been where I have been and has no idea what I know and all this gave me resistance to devoting my resources to attending Burning Man in those 2- 5 years ago times.

That and I wanted a lineup – I go to these things for the music – I LOVE MUSIC and I like what I like and I want my bluegrass and jam bands or reggae or bass music and Burning Man has no lineup.

Which scared me.

Of course I met a ton of people who had gone to Burning Man and were awesome – but it was same collection of people everywhere – it was people -all types – most good, a few bad and a lot in between.

One thing I could tell for sure – is that it was a good party and people were genuinely moved by it all – some devoting a lot of time and resources to the cause.

My brother Daniel was influential in a lot of my positive encounters as he ran with a large East Coast burner set and I slowly came to awareness that eventually I would have to get up there over to that playa and lay my eyeballs on it. SOMETIME.   

I didn’t feel called to go though – too much else to see in this world I guess - until this past April when I dreamt one evening that I was at Burning Man this year –but I shelved the idea as I had a lot of other plans.

Then I started having that dream again in May around my birthday and then I had it one time too many in June in Spain.

First things first – I need a ticket to make this happen and I needed it at face value or less and Burning Man has long been sold out and a quick look at Stubhub tells me that $2000 is not a price I would pay for much and certainly not this so I posted something on facebook to see what was happening in that arena of internet and I had a ticket for face within the hour. (thank you Geiber family )

That was cool but I didn’t really think about it after that and the dreams stopped and I was in Spain dreaming on something else anyways and that dream WAS something else and then I was back in the states on a new dream and there was like a month prior to the festival and I had no fucking plans about this thing and no idea.

I had spoke to a bunch of people who were in camps and what not and go every year  and I  had information and they assured me they could help me - plug me in.  Coming home was a blur so I didn’t think about it for about 10 days until I woke up and realized that though I had a ticket, I was not sure if I could make it this year –I hadn’t planned and I had resistance to the idea of just jumping on someone else’s established camp – not that I dislike that – because I love meeting new people – and have hopped on camps before – but I wanted to see this with my own eyes the first time – my own visceral experience of setting up the camp and dealing with all the elements and I just hadn’t planned.

So I was sort of giving up on the idea with no regrets – knowing I could pass the ticket on to someone that would really appreciate it – there was always next year - And I would think more about why I wanted to go to Burning Man although I was fine if it didn’t happen this year
and
was resolute being fine in not going
and
still I had Burning Man on my mind.

Why did I desire to go ?   – I wanted to put my eyeballs on it and derive a creative spark from it – I wanted to go because I knew it would be ‘fun’, I wanted to go so people could stop looking at me like I just ate a child after I tell them I haven’t been to burning man.

But why do I really want to go ?

The more I asked the question of why I felt called to going this year – what the dreams were telling me and I realized.

I wanted to go there to dream a beautiful dream and to participate in the collective dream. 

You see – just like any other sect of collective dream – any place where there are a lot of people - exists a concoction of everyone’s heart – their desires, their dreams, their intentions, their actions and that is the energetic temperature of the place – the real temperature- not always necessarily what it looks like – it is what everything adds up to be.

And I suspect that Burning Man is a playground where dreamers go to dream and where those who don’t know how to dream learn to.

 I feel as if Burning Man – the gathering – the people – everything it is – is just a sanctuary – made of humans and earth and stars and dreams and it has its own energetic temperature- and my guess?  it is hot –electric FIRE.  People seem to go there to dream – to feel free and I look forward in participating in it all seeing what I paint alone and what we paint as a camp and what we paint as humans who are there and that excites me.

Bunch of dreamers running around from this star to the next – everyone is there for their own reason and that’s the randomness and the beauty – because I have no idea who I will encounter or what will actually transpire
 AND I am excited to find out !

The whole unknown is fascinating to me – you can always aim your arrow to the future and planning is necessary at times  - but the raw truth of it all is nobody has a clue what tomorrow is or the next day or a month from now and the unknown excites me – I lust for that unknown – it’s a big blank canvas – and you got buckets of paint in every fucking color and every fucking form  because those are the tools we all have when we dream with love  and you have a big empty white dusty canvass that you get to paint on – everyday.  I see a forum like Burning Man – a canvas like that and it excites me. and one thing i know for sure is it is its own blank canvas – unique – there is no other white blank canvas  like it for you to paint on in this world  and I see that canvas and I feel that and I salivate because I don’t know and I know.

And to share it with a bunch of people I love!!!

 – in the sunshine and with music and good food and art and laughter and that high vibin’ exaltation of soul and FUCK!

This is why I want to go to – these are my desires and they were clear and I didn’t have a plan and didn’t want to devote all my time and/or money to put something together on my own and that was fine because I had a lot of work to do anyway but I felt a strong desire to go.

But I let it go – it would happen if it happened and now it is 18 days before the start of the fest  and I am getting ready to sell the ticket to a friend and I talk to one of my homeys I never see enough - Simon and he says that he and his Gf Maya who I never see enough have it all sorted with an RV and a camp and it is all their first time and that I just needed to be in San Francisco to meet up and drive on in – bring a tent and we can get supplies on the drive so .....

Can you get to San Francisco ?

And the weekend before the burning man I am in Santa Barbara anyways for a dear old friends wedding so yeah, that is easy.

I’ve planned and packed and blah blah blah blah and in thinking about it since I learned I would be going I knew :

I have no expectations of my first burn

And

know that I know absolutely nothing about Burning Man at this point.

But I believe in my capability to dream and dream well and I also believe in everyone else’s and I am beyond excited to see and participate in this collective celebration of the dream- see what i paint - see what we all paint on that big blank canvas that stares ahead of me. 

whole foods

I hate shopping at whole foods- 

And NOT because I don’t find the experience enjoyable. 

It’s just that – I walk in to Whole Foods and it is literally like I walked into HEAVEN’s grocery store.

It is usually well lit and spacious- the people there are all at least trying to be healthy and smiling – the air is fresh and has a bit of moisture from all the fresh produce –there are free samples and the employees all want to help

-the meat the best cuts –

and just so much goodness in that store.

And it is all fine and dandy until I inevitably think –

 “what the hell did I do to get to shop in heaven?!?!? – seriously- I mean even in my own country most people eat from walmart or some other kind of miserable place-let alone the world's issues with hunger and food- why I do I deserve this????”

then I get to the cash register and it says $81 and I had only come for almond milk and mangos

and then I wake up from that dream.

San Francisco Savagery Days 1 and 2

I wrote this piece almost 7 years ago. I was at the height of my despair - I was a corporate wizard - pulling in money and accolades with limitless potential, but as the days turned to months turned to years, I knew more and more that I was buying someone else's dream, and that this other person's dream I was being sold would not lead me to any happiness of my own.

About half a year prior to the events in this story my gf at the time had had enough of me - I was not who I once was - and she left, leaving me even more depressed and confused at the world I was living in. One fine Friday afternoon I decided to buy a ticket to SF and not tell any of my friends I was there but one - David-Ezra  - who was a corporate wizard at FaceBook- biding his time until stock options were handed out. I do not know why I went to SF or what I was thinking, only knew I had to go there and walk the streets so I did.

At the time, I had not done anything creative in a couple of years - which was a long time for me and the experience detailed in this story renewed a creative spark that I had seemingly lost. I make no apologies for my actions, have no regrets, it was simply me being me in the moment - doing the best I could- trying to understand - to feel ( or not to feel) something in a world that had gone so cold. As I have my whole life - I always go for authentic - genuine- and I use these great big eyes I have to see it loud and in stereo- I wanted to wallow with the bums and know what that felt like because why not? I am not above knowing a reality that I am aware exists - I welcome all humans existence as valid and in truth - I want to help those who need it most. But I didn't know any of this back then - I was just manic - felt trapped in a world I created that I didn't particularly like - and it only made it more difficult that I was good at this world I had created that I didn't particularly like.  I didn't know that the weekend would inspire anything creative - but when I got back - I sat down and wrote this piece on my t-mobile sidekick (bwhahahahahaha sidekick) - while watching an episode of the Soprano's - the memories flooding me - overwhelming me - my fingers moving so fast on that little cell phone keyboard that I didn't even have time to think about what I was writing- as if the story was coming from somewhere else, somewhere, above. It became a narrative that I have performed aloud many times - and though it translates better when I am reading it, I feel it is just as powerful when you read it and hear my voice in your head.

I've written a book "destination now: How a Drunken Angel Got his Wings (or maybe really perhaps how I became a man at age 32) - a project dear to my heart  that I am raising kickstarter funds for  (donate here! ) and as it would happen - as rich as only life can be - the events in the book start in the very same bukowski hotel where I came to on an SF whim all those years ago -this time, showing up a day early before a friend's surprise bday and not telling anyone - to stay at the mosser for the first time in all those years - called to do so - except this time I wasn't drunk or high or full of anxiety and depression. Please help support me get the book made - so you can read Chap 1 which is either a hilarious  look into my own patterns OR that little hotel is a place where the universal magnet works hard and true and perhaps just maybe - I should always listen when that hotel beckons - knowing - radical  change seems to occur in life- naked and poetic. Maybe it is just me or maybe it is the Mosser hotel - I can't really say for sure - but if you are ever in San Francisco  - maybe check it out - see if the vortex works for you too.

Ladies and Gentlemen - a window into some of my deepest sadness and darkest most lost times - the time when I was the pied piper of San Francisco's street people .......

"San Francisco Savagery"  (occurred on September 3, 2007)


DAY 1:

So I get off the plane in Oakland and hop a cab to San Francisco. I get stuck on the Bay Bridge at sunset. If you’ve never been stuck on the Bay Bridge at sunset, you probably don’t believe in god. 

I don’t care where the fuck you’ve been at what time there is nothing like the sun slowly kissing the San Francisco skyline before it goes to sleep in the pacific. 

It’s a prominent affair, which is grand and phenomenal but at the same time effortless and private. Watching this from the bridge is like kissing a lover for the first time, like sharing an inside joke that just you and her eternally understand. 

I arrive at the Mosser a recently rehabbed bio-friendly boutique hotel that 40 years ago looked like a place Bukowski may have haunted for a few dollars a week. 

My room is the size of a closet-the Hudson in NYC has larger rooms-but this one had a window that opens up to the roof of the building over so I walked onto it to smoke a cigarette and breathe in the view. 

This is rarified air.

This isn’t Chicago air,

this isn’t NYC air,

this is NOT helL.A. air.

It’s unique, different, yet I am too new to place it-to verbalize the magic.

Shower.

Change.

My born bruddah David-Ezra rolls over with a bottle of goose.

Pop a couple of Norcos.

Politik on the goose with DE.

Hit the car, drive to the Mission district to a spot called Delirium where I sit down in a smoky back room full of people going dumb and whackin lines. I’m blacked and I head to the bar.

They have Pabst on fucking tap. 

There’s a blonde next to me and I have no idea what I said but I end up sucking face. 

I get bored and go outside.

I have no idea what’s going on.

Bar time creeps up and a street full of kids on skateboards descend upon the mission. I cop a ball of chalk off some skater warrior I’m spittin' nonsense to and start wandering.  I run into a bunch of homeless addicts.

They ask me for a dollar.

I give them a bump.

All of a sudden I’m the pied fucking piper of San Francisco street people.

The only way to really get to know a city is to know its street people. 

Who better to know the heartbeat of a city than those who sit and watch it…..everyday….all day…..which way people walk….which wear what, who makes eye contact with who. 

Some homeless cat rolls up to me who I ended up nicknaming “Riverside”- because he was from my neighborhood back home and went to the local high school- maybe with my father in the day. 

This cat had a suit on and a fresh haircut and shave and I rap with him about Locust St. on the Eastside. Addicts are crawling out of the gutters to see what white kid is rapping away about the dangers of drugs, of the pain that they cause as he is handing out p-funk bumps – keep the cigarette- thank you very much. 

So I pipe my way over to the 711 and announce I’m buying drinks and cigarettes for everyone. 

The 711 is swarming infestation of bums. 7 packs of smokes and a bunch of drinks later I’m signing my debit card to the most bewildered Indian clerk ever (Patel). I find it hard to believe that nobody ever treated a bunch of wacked out bums to chips and stoges and shit….this is after all, the BAY.

I hand Riverside the remains of a 20 bag and he trades his drink for a point, and mainlines that shit under the phone booth at the 7 spot. 

I watch him carelessly jam a needle in a vein in his arm and inject. I tell him he is disrespecting our hood and his people. 

I tell him to look at himself in a mirror to see what a cool-cool cat he could be. 

He looks up at me and grins as wipes the blood from his arm and says that God sent me to get him high. 

I laugh and tell him that I sent myself to tell him that he was better than his situation. 

He asked for a $10 for some H so he could get a speedball in him and I gave him a $20 but told him that this $20 would be his last.

I bet ya old Riverside died that night, in his suit, with his fresh shave and hair combed proper.

I know it.

I felt the money I was giving him was his death, and I warned him, but he didn’t care. 

Maybe I did him a fucking favor, because life hurts.

With Riverside gone I walk. I see some serious old timers sitting on lawn furniture on the pavement at 330 in the morning in the Mission. I stopped and offered my peace for a piece of history of the Frisco street junkie.

Old Hank had been around, man…….he had been arrrround….he may never have left this one corner of the universe during his entire life,

but he had been around…..he was pushing mid-sixties and he’d been nothing but an H junkie for 40 years. I offered a blast and asked what he was doing 40 years ago during the Summer of Love….he replied hanging on Haight watching white kids twisted on Owsley Stanley’s acid while he hustled for H. I asked him about the A’s in the 70’s and Sal Bando and he smiles and says Sal Bando was a helluva ball player.

Love the mustaches.

Love the green and yellows.

Love the 70’s A’s.

He warns me to be careful so as to not get jacked but I tell him whose going to jack me? Money is just money and if they stick a gun in my face and take it, well, apparently moneys as easy to get as sticking a gun in someone else’s face. Hank goes up to his room to shoot up. I say peace and hail a cab. 

I hit some all nite diner and meet two Hispanic broads, both about 21 and cute but possibly prostitutes. I slide into their booth and buy them breakfast. And ask which one deep throats better. Maria, the cuter one does. (yay!). I stare at the Denver omelette I ordered and poke it with my fork.

This omelette isn’t getting eaten.

I take Maria up to my hotel room. She puts a hat on Jimmy and starts blowing me. She can DEEPTHROAT. She furiously bobs up and down but I’m not cumming. Not tonight, not at this point….not coked up at 530 am with a dome on. She gags on my cock awhile longer but my thoughts turn to my ex. She won’t let me fuck so I buy a pay per view porno (filthy porn sluts 7) and jerk off on her while she gets on all fours and fingers her ass and plays with her pussy.

I bust.

She leaves.

And I go to bed mind twisted with the absolute savagery of this new drug I call the BAY.  

SAN FRANCISCO SAVAGERY Day 2:

I awake head fuzzy to the sun insidiously passing through my window. The events of previous night are still buzzing in my brain and something else too……something new, and old.

Get up.

Get out.

Get up.

Get out.

Get up Get up Get up

Get out Get out Get out.

I don’t want to though, a depression gripped me overnight.

I no longer wanted to venture out alone, in a city that to me, was synonymous with love, a love that had recently left me.

Instinct, circulatory adrenaline won as I stepped into pants and ate two yellow painkillers to cure the hangover and gear up to go.

Where’s my bank card? Did Maria jack it? One of the bums? Did I leave it at the diner?

Call B of A.

Charges?

$5.50 at a gas station and $7.37 at Denny’s.

You’re welcome. Whoever the fuck you are, I would have gladly bought you the Grand Slam had you asked.

I cancel the card and hit the pavement.

Fuck…..it’s gorgeous.

Fuck…...it’s celestial.

Fucccck……..it’s depressssiing.

Life just seems brighter here, everything-even if it is in the shade – is illuminated. It’s as if the on this one small piece of earth, the lights just work better.

Fuck.

I walk nowhere which takes me to the Wharf. Tourists.

Farmers Market. Tourists.

Up Market St to City Hall. The landscape is rougher, older, seedier, but the universal lights work better here too. A woman sits on the lap of a legless homeless man in a wheelchair and cocks her head back and

laughs. Even the bums laugh and revel in this light….I am jealous of this legless homeless person.

I want his happiness.

Nob Hill. Rich people.

Tenderloin. Poor people.

Muni to Castro. Gay people.

Hoof it to Haight. Street kids and wannabe hipsters.

None of this bothers me. Inhabitants of distinct neighborhoods conform to unspoken stylistic parameters set….yet, still….something different here.

Painkillers are a funny drug.

The yellow guys in my stomach give me a sunny disposition to match the sunny day, but there are strange vibes on this sunny late summer day in the BAY. Depression and happiness intermingle in my head. I walk up lower Haight and stop in a dive for a pint. The jukebox saturates the place in the soothing I-rations of dub.

Do I choose sadness or happiness?

I still don’t know.

The grip of a lover lost is tight, and although she is long gone, she holds strong, because I didn’t convince myself to love her, it simply was. Whereas in the past I loved a girlfriends looks, the sex, social standing, intellect, or wealth, with her it was Complicatedly Simple Love. She could have been dumb and paralyzed with chronic halitosis and looked like Godzilla, and I still would have loved her if her Soul was intact. The pain I am feeling is magnified by the how lost I was in my own life. The domination - the winning - the money - the cars - the women - none of it could mask the emptiness I felt inside and although I smiled at my success, it was blackness that filled me. 

Black Uhuru dubs along.

I think of this, of these things…of her-I can’t help it.

I sip my pint of Stella.

The beauty of this neighborhood fucking hurts.

I leave the dive, struggling to break from the musical chords of the place, but I must do this.

The last time I walked these streets I was in love.

The last time I walked these streets I had my lover walking with me.
The last time I walked these streets I was excited at life and all it's possibilities. 

The last time I walked these streets my Soul smiled, emanating Love and Happiness.

Today I walk these beautifully imperfect cracked concrete streets alone.

And it fucking hurts.

Smiles on every face I see….I try to muster a Soul Smile, but I can’t.

I stop in a corner store and buy a 22 of Heine and drop another painkiller in the beer.

5000 mgs of hydrocodone aren’t working.

I still feel pain.

What a blatant misnomer.

I brown bag my 22 and cruise down Haight. What I need is a painkiller for the Soul so I hoof it to Amoeba, my personal Mecca. I check my beer at the door and copp some ridic roots muzak: Cornell Campbell, Eek-a-Mouse, Barrington Levy, Mikey Prophet – among others, and momentarily forget the burden of scorned love.

I leave.

Some streetkat asks if I wanna buy some sheet music. I don’t play anymore I tell him but buy it anyways. My heart may sing again….you never fucking know.

I walk back to the Muni with a heavy heart. I think I may just go to bed. Wake up tomorrow and leave this beautiful hell never to return, Soul infinitely tortured by the knowledge of a place so beautiful.

I pass a bum on the street looking for a handout.

This time I stop and take a long look at his poor sad face and asked him if he knows where I could find God.

He smiles a toothless smile and says he goes to church every Sunday.

I sort of grunted and said no and asked if he had ever shook God’s hand….before he could answer I palmed him 5 bucks and walked on…yelling as I passed that if he found God to tell him I was looking for him.

Pfizer doesn’t yet manufacture painkillers for the Soul, although I am confident that they are trying. And honestly, chicken soup just doesn’t fucking cut it.

I’m going back for a nap, and I hope that this all turns out to be a beautiful nightmare. My phone buzzes and its DE ready to do the town.

My Soul, my Soul, is at the pinnacle of its agitation.

I don’t know if I can do this.

I stop at a liquor store near my hotel and grab a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and some mini bottles of Powers Irish Whiskey.

I don’t know if I can do this.

I just don’t know.

I don’t know much of anything anymore- a great tragic tumble from the Arenthian height of knowing it all. 

To look into someone’s eyes and have the comforting feeling of a secure future teleported into your Soul, and then you wake up one day, and that persons eyes are closed…….you feel lost…..

I am nothing now.

Although I walk and breathe and talk and laugh my Soul bleeds internally for a girl that doesn’t care. But I care, still I care - and I don’t know why or how to stop.

I’ve searched my body over but can’t find the switch to flip caring off. (Maybe it’s somewhere I can’t reach?).

I trudged up the stairs of my little Bukowski boutique hotel, each ancient step creeks in sadness, they too feel my anguish.

What the fuck am I doing in this city?

I turn on the shower, undress and sit on the corner of my bed naked.

I look at my hands, hands that have been with me through everything.

These hands have hurled in anger and embraced in love, and languidly idled by my side in apathy.

I look at my hands and do not see dirt. But like the trunk of a tree I can trace the rings of my life: love happiness depression apathy joy sadness all in the lines of my palms.

I get in the shower and the water is scalding.

It feels good.

I put one hand in front of me and lean into the steaming hot water with my head down.

Baptize me.

Cleanse me.

Forgive me.

I shampoo and scrub and although the water is too hot I do not back away.

I want Redemption, and the burning water is not as hot as the burning pain that reverberates my Soul.