Sunday, September 11, 2011

PUBLIC SERVICE LIMITED

With These Mass-Mailings, I Hope to Trigger a Response to a Cryptic Phrase. You are Invited, "Anonymous." Maybe Only Wasted High-Schoolers Take an Interest in Crypto-Com. So!


"This is Your Super-Star Movie, You're the Co-Star and We are Your Fans. We're Loyal, You'll Wheel Around to 'Tops,' Yes, You're an Attraction.


"The Audience is All Under-Aged at a 'Restricted' Feature. You are the Idol of That Audience."


One Version: Remember----You are in a Life. Your Ambitions are Served. We Love You. You are an Exemplar of Your Point of View.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

BODIES...THE EXHIBITION

Cincinnati Museum Center 31Mar2008
I was originally going to see this show with two friends but they backed out at the last minute and I was left to see it by myself. Standing in line an hour for the $23 ticket (I forewent the $3 movie) I observed the crowd and it was preternaturally normal: families with strollers, retired people, a few European tourists. The only anomalies were a couple of "Goth" kids who seemed excited about a corpse-empire and a bald chemo-woman with her grown daughter.

A long list of necessary rules were explained at the entrance followed by a giddy old woman ticket-taker who lamented that the high school biology classes that took the tour didn't take full advantage of "this wonderful opportunity," breezing through the exhibit in fifteen minutes. Why do teenagers only respect ghouls in Hollywood Horror Movies? Don't they know that this is a World-Class Haunted House?

So, young Chinese corpses (90% male) abounded, posed playing baseball, basketball, dancing, throwing discus. Body parts in cases, the bodies themselves out in the open, all eviscerated a hundred different ways. I experienced a range of emotion throughout the long tour (1-2 hours), a little overwhelmed by the end. I was cheered by the sight of the last corpse, a prosthetic man with a plastic heart and metal bones, a welcome sight after that endless procession of meat.

In the gift shop I purchased the $20 souvenir photograph book, commenting to the random clerk that the sense of our common mortality was staggering to me at that moment. Incidentally, Little Kids were everywhere you looked, and they were all having a blast.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

GHOST RIDER No. 2, April, 1967.

SAINT DARLENE

ALL-OUT WORTHLESSVILLE TEATIME VIRTUAL THEATRE

Cast of Characters:
SAINT DARLENE LUSTIG, real estate agent.
OUR SPORTY SPICE, world-class loser.

The living room of a $300,000 aluminum house. Enter DARLENE.

DARLENE: I could quote Heller, I could ask, "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" Instead I'll quote Sporty Spice: "I'm the featured player of ten thousand snuff films!"

Enter SPORTY as glowing apparition.

DARLENE: Hark! My Favorite Martian appears to reaffirm mine faithlessness!

DARLENE begins to glow while SPORTY dims. At the brightest moment, DARLENE vanishes and SPORTY is alone and all too human at the edge of a forest at night.

SPORTY: God knows what's going on. [looks around] This has eternity beat by miles. [pause] I could be happy. [looks at audience] This play is over. Get lost. Now. [disappears into woods]

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN No. 142, October, 1971.

RANT by Cleophus Beasley

...Tim is in his early 30's, about 6' "3, around 140 lbs, missing nearly all his grill, V E E E E E R Y generous with his drugz...A good guy to know, if yer into that sorta thing...He gave Jen a H U G E habit...Before Tim, she was a "Good Girl" who didn't fuck with needles or hard drugs...She bartends two or three times a week at "Submarine Galley" (A sub shop/bar on Short Vine in Clifton )A typical night fer Tim is he'll get Jen's ATM card from her (Usually willingly), then he'll go to the ATM and withdrawal substantial amounts of cash (Anywhere from $50, to once without Jen knowing, $400!), buy mass coke (Usually 1/4 oz.), with intent to move (Sell) it to his "Network" of cocaine partners...Many times, he'll do deals right there in the "Sub Galley" while Jen is bartending (Typically, he'll lead the buyer into the '4 x '5 ladies john, and make the transact)...That's how it started...Now, when he get's his "Quarter "O's", instead of slinging it, he and Jen will blast off the whole 1/4 "O" in one sitting...It's been done like this fer a few months now, and in the mean time, Tim got arrested fer something or another(He wasn't holding when he got popped), he's ripped off most of the few friends that he had (One of whom tried to break Jen's front door in and damaged it), Jen's landlady demanded to Jen that Tim couldn't live there or even BE there...When Jen's not at her house (She lives in a one bedroom apartment above a defunct corner store, on the second floor), I've witnessed Tim (Who doesn't have a key) climb up onto a public telephone console mounted on the outer wall of the store, reach his arms up straight directly above his head and grab Jen's second story window sill, then he pulls his foot onto the sill, then, sure enough, the other foot, now finally situating himself in a crouched, fetus-like, huddle onto her (About five inches deep from the wall) window sill...All this done quickly so the snitch neighbors won't see (The neighbors across the street tell Jen's landlady about ANY Tim sightings) Next, he frees one hand from the sill and pulls the window up...Lanky, undernourished junkie shit, me thinks...

...That was about two months ago, and he still kicks it there, the front door now repaired...

...Most of Tim's old coke supplier's (Or wholesaler's) have cut him off fer reasons he won't tell me, but I can only imagine...It's to the point now, that I'm hooking him up with my people...He hasn't fucked up with them yet, but they all think he's a character, fer shit like going down to my people's area (Near McMicken and Dunlap in the West End) at 6:00am, all KEYED - THE - FUCK - OUT, with the High Beams on, doin the Cluck Walk...

...Concluding the Rant, April is an unemployed single mother of a six-year-old girl, who's going with one of my best friends, Tom...Tom is likely the most notorious heroin junky in Clifton...I've known him since 1990...After being released after a four month rehab stint, Tom wuz back to normal in no time immediately after his release...

I went to April's house in the mid - evening on a weekday...Tim was sorta half living at Jen's (Only when the Gestapo neighbors didn't notice him entering or exiting) and half living at April's, in the spare room ( a.k.a. "The Shooting Gallery" or "S.G.") at her place...

* S I D E N O T E *

...It's funny, I would bring food from my parent's house fer April and her daughter, and even cat food fer her cats...Once, when I came with food, and April wasn't home, and Tim was, Tim tried to con me into giving HIM the goodies (Sans catfood), by explaining to me that April is now receiving food stamps...

...When I got upstairs in the April's house, into her apartment, I first went into the kitchen...The S.G.'s (Which entrance was through the kitchen) door was closed...I heard talking inside the room and I knocked on the door, and heard Tim say "Just a minute Beas"! I think I told him earlier that I was coming...I remained in the kitchen for a few moments and then Tim came out of the S. Gallery door then I heard Jen's voice say "Hi Beas"...Tim started to shut the S.G. door when I caught it and opened it a bit and then heard Jen say something to me about me not wanting to see her...I assumed that she had some bad tracks or something like that (Tim tells me that Jen is difficult to hit, little or dead/dying veins, tough skin, scar tissue, abscesses)...I opened the door, and saw her sitting on the mattress on the floor...

...Not to sound like a meathead or a tough guy, but I've seen some shit in my life that few people have been unfortunate to see (Fresh death, Scabies, AIDS victims, V.D. awareness films in high school, my tracks, April's ex-roommate, Lauren [Lauren: 25ish Schizophrenic, Pregnant, Crack Smoker])...Jen, sitting "Indian Style" on the S.G. mattress, looked liked she weighed 80 pounds or close, she was bony...Her hair was stringy and unwashed...But all that's not shit...Jen had what looked like 100's of 1/2cm or so in diameter lesions, spots, bumps, whatever the fuck you call em, covering her face, neck, arms, everywhere...

...Seeing her like that in addition to her demeanor (She said she'd "Hit rock bottom"...) really shocked hell out of me...In my past concession, delusion, or maybe my selfish past denials of reality and things real, like Lauren, dead runs, etc.


* S I D E N O T E *

...I first met Jen at the Sub Galley, last spring...I was there with Jason Miltin...Jason and I were down in Clifton probably lookin to get into some shit er somethin...While we were waiting for nuthin', we stopped in the ...Milt and I sat at the bar and got a pitcher......It turned out that it was Jen's first day working there...The two of us (Milt, Me) hit it off with her as soon as we sat down...She seemed green to the "scene" (Whut's left of it) If she only knew all the things I've done there (Bought/sold/did/saw dope, gettin head in the ladies "room" (Galley ladies
room = '4 x '3), have thrown up on every square inch of the bar, saw my friend get tasered by police in the bar, saw songs come and go on the jukebox (Gimme Some Skin = R.I.P.), countless barfights...All before I was 21...

..Had fake ID since I wuz 16, when I got my 1st driver's license...

..HOW TO MAKE FAKE ID ON THE OLD LAMINATED TYPE...

1.> Spray hairspray (Unscented, preferably) onto the face of a LAMINATED ID or license, over the date of birth
2.> Let hairspray dry
3.> With a BLACK felt tip pen, LIGHTLY tap over the tiny computer printout dots on the desired digit(s) on yer birth year (I was born in 1974...I lightly tapped the felt tip pen in a dotted "0" (Zero) formation over the "4" (Try to coincide with the existing dots as much as necessary) on where it said 1974 (The felt tip pen ink "0" should be a notably to slightly darker black than the remaining text on the license)
4.> While the pen ink is still slightly moist on the license, use a clean, dry piece of cloth to slowly, but repeatedly dab over the newly created "0"...The ink now should appear faded, and coincide closely with the hue of the other text on the license...

Fin

Friday, March 4, 2011

IS THIS THE DEMISE OF SPORTY SPICE?

Sporty Spice in a slum district at 3 a.m. She got lost. She finds cold medicine in her bright white summer coat, washes it down with strawberry milk, and sleeps it off beside a supermarket.

She wakes at dawn, mutters "All right!" to herself, smokes clove cigarettes in front of the pawn shop until 9 a.m. when she trades her bracelet for five hundred credits.

Later, at the bus station, she studies the Departure Board, the cities representing friendship, love, adventure, the unknown.

She makes her choice, buys a ticket, and thirty hours later, Sporty Spice arrives, Queen-Like in her mind, in the City Where Everything Will Happen.

Friday, February 18, 2011

OVERTOWN AND LIBERTY CITY

Driving in the poorest neighborhoods in Miami with Adam during the hottest part of day, he tried to get me to talk about why I was feeling so fucking bad, and I couldn't open my mouth and he was getting frustrated, almost angry, he told me to say the alphabet and I did, singing it, but I still couldn't tell him anything worthwhile.

So I can recite the 26 letters, tell you what year it is, drive a car, (even though I almost hit a man on a bicycle yesterday, didn't see him until he was in front of me,) wash dishes, (even though I dread meeting other boarders in the kitchen and prefer to wash my dishes late at night or across the hall in the bathtub.)

My whole life seems like a mistake, and the only way to see it differently is to be able to get some words on a page. It's difficult to get started doing this if I don't feel like everything I write will make people like me, I think that must be a newly-revealed trait. I want these people to like me without knowing me, just by a feeling they had from a few meetings, a conversation, letters, wondering about me-----AND JESUS GOD IN HEAVEN THIS IS HOKUM

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

PUNK ROCK PRESIDENT IN CRISIS

Flowers are the Flags of God.
And where do I stand with God?
I race to escape His Displeasure,
Marching to the Corner Store,
Dressed to the Nines----

A Living Morality Play, All Day,
All My Life.
So I breathe,
I tell Myself I'm real, I'm real,
I tell Myself I love my Life----

On Earth looking at Stars.
On Drugs looking at Stars.
We are Starlets.
Sometime Superstars.
Endless.

This is not a Secret.
This is obvious to Everyone.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT

Dear, Dear Nobody: So, if an Army-of-Malcontents took Sledgehammers to these Playskool-T.V.-Screens, I could still scratch my Pleas for-and-of Sporty Spice in a Notebook, Mail-Carriers might deliver my Postcards and Love-Letters, I mean, this Modern Format is a Massive Overkill.

Let's become Hyper-Modern, Right-Now, or let's just turn the Computer "Off" and leave it "Off."
Love, Whomever.