Ok it's hard

No one said it wouldn't be

But you're not making it any easier

By complaining

Wah wah wah

You got yourself into this mess buddy

Now quit crying

Just take it easy 

Relax drink some water

Go for a walk

That'll help

 How many years?

Like fifty billion? I dunno but 

a long fucking time

Man has been around like what? 500,000 years?

And yet we're covering the earth with plastic and garbage

In the air in the dirt in the water

We're leaving our mark!

In 100,000 years there will only

be pyramids 

and plastic

Pyramids and Plastic!

 The night is regular

cold night but not really cold

just cold enough to be a relief 

In a world on fire

 3:42 in the morning

Reading Bukowski talking about

John Fante laying in the hospital 

for three years blind

with his legs amputated 

Three years

Buk visits him kinda regularly but 

Fante doesn't know what he looks like

but he likes him because he can talk 

to him about writing

 I'm laying in bed

Knowing I can't have a cigarette

There is no one cigarette

My body is broken

Something in my head has snapped

And it goes thru my teeth

And down the side of my neck

To my back and my chest

Indigestion broils when I lay down 

I'm a mess

 So dried out

dried out

dried out 

dried out

 

my nostrils like the Sahara

Twin winds of dry

I smoked for years

And then started to drink

But damn these nostrils

I bought saline solution

and spray it up there

Which makes it okay for a little while

dried out

dried out 

dried out

 Brief

   breed parcels

in a river

   You are the answer

But what's the question?

 Ah who knows?!

     The sun is today

   Yesterday 

Tomorrow

But there will be night

 When bats fly

  Animals eyes light up

Fireflies synchronize 

  Stars are overhead 

   Telling their tales of the infinite

  But the fire is warm

   And laughter lives with beer

Until the whisky 

 Comes out

Then we'll fight and 

   Fuck and

  Sleep in tents

    Some in camper shells

Some wander at 3 am

On a full moon

  And can be scary when you get up

To go pee

 Moon phased

     laser blasted in a dime machine

What no

   I'm starting 

Or not just let it be

   Close that door

Open that window

  Freedom! From no one

I'm running with a thousand bags of 

  Who knows what 

  It's the standard stuff

  We all got it

Junk in the trunk

   Yep

 

 I was working the counter.

A portly younger guy wearing shorts and a rumpled Hawaiian shirt carried up a giant stack of books.

I rang up the books.

"That'll be a hundred and fifty six dollars and 27 cents."

His hair was tousled and he looked like he hadn't shaved in a few days.

He dug his hand in the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a wad of bills all crumpled and in a big clump. He set the clump on the counter and started picking out bills.

"Fifty seventy ninety one ten one thirty one fifty one sixty!"

I picked up the bills gave him his change and put the books in bags. 

"Thank you."

"Yeah"

He gathered up the bags and his clump of bills and walked out. 

Jeez I thought to myself rich fuck piece of shit.

About three minutes later I walked out front of the counter and on the floor pressed against the counter was a crumpled $100 bill. I looked for the guy half heartedly but he was gone.

I pocketed the hundred. I needed the money. We had debts.

 Todd Rundgren was a customer. 

Todd came in the bookstore and bought a large stack of computer books. No Paris in the twenties for Todd. 

Todd's girlfriend. If you looked Groupie up in the Encyclopedia Brittanica they're'd be a line drawing of her.

Young, tall, and very skinny with a giant poofy fro-like hairdo and hippy like clothes. She looked nice. 

Todd wasn't so nice. I'm not sure if he was having a bad day or if rock stars just don't talk to bookstore clerks. 

I was helping him at the counter and I asked him if he still had Eric Clapton's guitar from Cream.

He made a face and said nastily "Of course I do!"

Huh (later he sold it)

I had to call in his credit card because he was buying so many books.

The operator after hearing the name said "I probably should have said Hello, it's me."

Haha

 They hired me as a clerk in the bookstore.

I forget how much they paid but it wasn't much. Maybe $7 an hour? Maybe less 5.50? Anyhoo

It was a new bookstore across the street from the Embarcadero Center. The main bookstore was a famous technical bookstore on Market St that had been there for years. They had decided to open an adjunct bookstore  in the financial district so business types didn't have to walk ten blocks to shop. 

The manager was transferred from their Modesto location. She was cool and kinda laid back. I guess the Modesto store had been a success so they moved her to the big city. 

Most of the other clerks were weird brainiac types who were into obscure writers I'd never heard of. 

"You've never heard of J. Z. McFlintlock?! OMG wtf?"

"Yeah I like Larry McMurtry. I think he was the inspiration for Kesey's character McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Kesey had participated in Stanford Psychedelic tests which I think was also an inspiration for the setting at a mental institution. Tom Wolfe's book is a pretty great telling of Kesey and his Merry Pranksters!"

"Oh you should read Esther Grimey! She is dark!"

"Huh"

The shipping clerk in the basement had an encyclopedic knowledge of movies. It was incredible. He could go on for hours about minor characters in B films from the thirties etc. I was like what are you doing in the basement? You should be teaching film or writing a book!

The assistant manager was a very straight non literary type who was all business. He had a French wife and he used to bring large bags of popcorn that he created custom seasonings for. 

The manager had to deal with the district manager who was a short little bossy man who came around occasionally and complained. She grew to dislike him. I always wondered if they'd had a relationship before. It was weird. 

I was into Paris in the twenties around then and would order books from that time to try to sell. I'd make a display of them but nobody bothered. Computer books were the thing. DOS, How to Write C++, Fortran. Buzzoring!

On my birthday the manager took me on a ferry to Sausalito and we got drunk. We had a good time but we were gone from the store for hours. When we got back the district manager was there and he was red faced with anger.

"Where have you been?!"

Later she told me he could fuck off. Lol

 In 1985

We had moved back to SF after spending three months on the cheap riding night trains in Europe and seeing great art in the Museums of the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, France & England. 

I applied for a job at a bookstore downtown after seeing an ad in the want ads. I'd worked in the photo industry as a custom photo printer at a bunch of different labs. Santa Cruz's Film Stop at 44th Ave and Hexco on Laurel street. My first job was in 1983 at the New England Color Lab in Lynn, MA. I'd studied photography at college and had a degree in Studio Art but more importantly I'd worked in the darkroom. I was hired on the spot. I was trained by the guy in the darkroom next to mine. He spent most of the training bitching about the other people who worked there. He took me to a sandwich shop and I had my first Hero sandwich - like a submarine sandwich, with oil and vinegar meat and cheese. I'd never had anything so good. Yum!

One day he got me stoned at lunch and that didn't go so well.

Banging on the door.

"What are you doing in there?!"

I guess I'd spent a long time doing some test prints.

"Um I can't remember what I'm doing."

WBCN was blasting J. Geils from the radio in my dark room. 

"My memory has just been sold, my angel in the centerfold!"

No more getting stoned at work for me.

 Spent casings

scattered in the hallway

"Looks like another shooting"

"Look at the blood! Goddamn!"

"We better call the police."

"No. We better get the fuck out of here right now."

Three blocks down the street we saw a cop car go speeding by lights on siren blaring. 

We went to Roy's at 23rd and Lincoln and it was cool and dark.

"No bloody Mary's."

Jimmy laughed.

 

 My dreams

 In a practice 

   mode with a pitchback

In a guinea pig backyard

 A half block from the school

I cried 

because I didn't want to go to school

Mom said I was our least interested student

And would, given a chance,

spend every day at home

But I got used to coming home

for lunch to fried egg sandwiches 

  

 

 I need water

Ice cold water

To drown myself

To feel the numbing cold

To feel the bubbling lack of air

To escape this stupid useless bullshit

Or maybe just a glass

Of ice cold h2O

To snap me out of it

 Time strays 

   a lampoon 

of days ( 

  Splayed

   with further notices 

bodices

   And Beehive 

eyes

   In the mmm

woods

  dirty socks 

  With those little pointy things

)what are they called?(

Stuck to your socks and 

    sneakers

Anyhoo Farley Mowat

  (Our short legged dog)

used to get them in 

 his dick 

Poor Farley!

 Black Eyed Jesus

  spit in the face of 

Your chosen _____________.

He checked his iPhone.

 "Why doesn't Mary Magdalene reply?!"

Mary's at the bar with another vodka tonic talking

 to a young man with wavy hair.

"Do you live near here?"

 

 the Supplication

   of Pustules burning on one's chest

   white wine doesn't taste good

  you take drugs for the pain

  but they don't do jack shit

    you email the doctor and

get a form reply by her administration

  HEY fucjsticjs I'm texting her not the entire goddamn

administration

 privacy is a fucking lie

Sign here  initial here

Sign there 

and there

   and there  

  and there

now drop your trousers

 and spread your ass cheeks

Julio will ramrod this therapeutic slivery

 broomstick in your foul

 arse hole

   Patient 9