Hello Again...

I haven't had anything to say in a long time. I am not too sure I have anything to say now. But the fingers stagger over well-worn keys and the cigarette smoke curls upward into bloodshot eyes and words spill onto the empty page regardless.


Everything has changed. A massive shift in both environment and frame of mind. I have had an epiphany and it has resulted in my sobriety and a completely different way of life for the Lovely, Moon, and I. Everything had to change. My habits were killing me and the stress was killing Sam. I poured the whiskey into the toilet and cried myself to sleep for the next two weeks. The Lovely Sam clutched me in her arms and cried along with me.


I have been addicted to one thing or another for my entire life. Contrary to popular belief, my relationship with my abusive mother was not healthy. I hated her and she hated me and we tried to love each other but never quite got there. Most of my childhood was an exercise in escape. I read thousands of books before I finally began writing my own fictions. I just felt like I had to get away and stay there. When I discovered booze and women, I never looked back. And then there was B.J.'s marijuana and and I ran away to California with the Navy. Cocaine and a stripper named Dixie from Austin, TX ended that.


Then there was LSD and the drum circle hippies in Golden Gate Park and after that it was the Road and pills. I hitchhiked from coast to coast, my boots never touching the ground. A chubby blond, not my wife, with a bag of crystal meth, nearly destroyed me both mentally and physically but I survived strong enough to become a raging alcoholic in the years that followed.


All along the way, I hurt people. I cheated and I lied. I betrayed and I stole. The Saint inside of me was no match for the bullying of the Sinner. The Saint inside of me also wanted to hide from who He had become. Booze became judge, jury, and executioner, painkiller, excuse, symptom...I ran away. Mentally, emotionally and geographically. I ran away to the Florida Keys over 10 years ago, no suitcase but plenty of baggage. I was intent on disappearing from the face of the earth and destroying myself along with the guilt. Riding alongside me, in a beat up Buick, was a woman with her own past to outrun and who was perfectly content to watch me drown myself in mine.


She began caring long before me.


Oh well.


I became a drunk. Plain and simple. And plain and simple, I quit. I had given up narcotics on Thanksgiving of last year and I figured, How hard could it be?


Right...


For the last decade I have drank, on the average, a fifth of whiskey(gin, vodka, rum, what ya got?) every single day...sometimes more. EVERY DAY. FOR TEN YEARS.


So I quit.


Simple right?


I thought so too. Quitting drinking is super easy. You just don't drink. No one told me that not drinking would physically hurt. No one told me about the dry heaves, the tremors, the unexplained anxiety, the nightmares, the self-loathing, and the craving that brought me to my knees, weeping, several times a day...


No one told me that it would be traumatic.


I hate to steal a line from Hank Moody but "I can't write. Which kinda sucks since I am supposed to be a writer and a professional one at that. But lately I haven't been able to produce so much as a goddamn predicate..."


Severe withdrawals twice in one year cannot be good for you. First pills and then the hooch. It has to take its toll on the body and mind. I have found myself staying home so that I don't run into any of my old drinking buddies and spend my time playing computer games. I have nearly become agoraphobic in the last few months, ironically avoiding my means of escape. Escaping my escape.


I don't know if I ever again will have anything to say but if I do...Here is as good a place as any.

I Held a Woman Once.

I held a woman once, who was not mine to hold. She was the friend of a friend who trusted me enough not to get angry when she kissed another girl.

I was not angry. I just wanted to kiss her too.

And I did…

And I held her like I had never expected to. Like I was supposed to.

It may have not meant a goddamn thing to her but I held her. And she held me back and It was good.

I may not even be a blip on her Life’s Radar but it began, for me, a decade of contemplation on the Nature of Lust.

As most of my Faithful Readers know, I hardly ever write, or even talk about SEX, even though SEX has been one of the Defining and All-Powerful aspects of my life.

I have managed to pay my rent, buy my groceries, break a Good woman’s heart, Destroy a church, conceive children, found a Religion, change lives, and kill a vacuum cleaner…All at the end of my SEX…

But yet, as a rule of thumb, I hesitate to discuss my SEXual proclivities in Public. Especially, now that I am older and not nearly the King of All Sluts as I used to be, it just seems Untoward.

If I ever get caught discussing the Sensual Nature of the Pleasures of the Flesh, it is usually through the eyes of a character I have created.

A midget with tendencies toward Sadomasochism, a honeymoon couple, an unfaithful Poetess with emerald green eyes…anything but me.

But this woman was Real. She was no figment of my fertile imagination.

She was solid, tangible, Fleshy, and real.

She would not be denied. Could not be denied, even today…

I am still friends with the friend but have since lost touch with this Woman.

She was not the First nor will she ever be the Last.

She, as all the others, holds a special place in my heart and Mind. They were all Special. Not just special but almost Divine.

In my mind, they have all become One…

One Woman encompassing all. A giant conglomeration of Legs, and Breasts, and Thighs, and Whispers, and Promises, and Kisses, and reaching to Her side of the bed just to make sure She is still there.

Demigoddesses of Lust. Queens of Sensual Depravity. Harbingers of I will Never leave you.

I Worship unconditionally.

Some were Held. Some were Touched. Some were Fucked like depraved animals. Some fell in love until they learned better.

Some stayed for a while. Some ran screaming into the Night.

Some still pray for me…

Some have given up.

I remember them All.

I remember a shower under the stairs, a kiss under the bleachers, a dirty phone call from Your sister, the night we Only touched, and sang and sang and Sang…

I remember her crying when she Came for the first time, and how I cried when I realized We had just made love for the Last. I remember Your squeaky squeals and the way you casually stole my wallet while I basked in the Afterglow.

I remember hay in Grandpa’s barn, sand in Waikiki, and an exquisite park Somewhere in San Francisco where an actress Well over her prime pulled out her teeth…

I remember a man’s shirt over skinny legs, cocaine and carrots, a tool belt and Her husband in the next room.

I remember screaming at your picture on the wall, dancing barefoot in the dewy grass, and the first time She tried to hit me with her car.

I remember fourteen stitches, backstage at the Stones, and the Last time you told me you Loved me.

I remember Making Love to you from afar. Begging for just a brush of your fingertips. The caress of your Breath upon my skin. I remember trembling at the Thought of your attentions.

I remember watching you sleep but I was Only your friend.

I remember all of you…

I do.

I held a woman once, who was not mine to hold.

But I held her.

For a minute.

And she is Now divine…

Sweet Jeebus...Calm Down!

It is amazing to me how many people would rather substitute mass media projections of Truth, for the actual Truth itself. I am saddened and depressed for the next millenia of Humans.

DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK!!!!!

Just because I write so eloquently about Rampant debauchery and violent Deviance and have occasionally dipped my toes into the pool of spiraling Decline, the great Majority of these stories are fiction!

Calm the Fuck down!

No, I do not think, by this time, that it is any secret that my ex-wife Hates me...and Rightfully so.

I do not think that by now that it is any secret that I have wronged my chillens, stolen from convenience stores,cheated on my taxes, badmouthed my venerated Mother, told my daughter that Santa did not exist, cheated on every wife (there have been 4 of them), wrecked cars while drunk, shot a man in anger, OD'd more times than you have been to a National Park, and claim to have seen a UFO, up close!

BUT the Great majority of these stories, are fiction!

Here is a good example, if there ever was one....

The Preceding story, named "Ham on Rye...and whatnot" is actually about a Very legal road race called the Bay Bottom Crawl. It is been raced LEGALLY for over 30 years in Big Pine Key, Florida and my loving wife of over 10 years is now a driver for her very own crew. She works very hard at practice, is a wonderful mother and is a recent college graduate at the age of....(oh, I don't think you are going to trick me into that one!)...21.


My friend, my compadre and partner-in-at-least-a-half-dozen-drug-related crimes, Sally? Actually based on my friend from New England, Alfred. And other than the occasional beer and some shit the doctor(and Judge) makes him take for Compulsive Erections the man doesn't even do drugs. We officiated the race which WAS hot, buggy, and for the vast majority of the time, boring as Hell. I started formulating the story because I WAS bored!

The picture on my blogspot of a fat guy in the road, which looked like the Corvette hit him? That is me! After the one wreck of the day, which happened right in front of Alfred and I, the tow truck came and pulled the Vette out of the tree in which it landed...I thought, after 3(and only 3) beers, about how funny that picture would be, along with the story and my new ending! Alfred took the picture and if you look in the background, one of the pit crew is laughing his ass off at us while the picture is being taken.

And if you were curious and I doubt you were, the driver, Stephen? He is perfectly fine.

EVERY driver of the Real Bay Bottom Crawl is a very earnest driver and would never Dream of imbibing in a buttload of drugs before hitting the track. They take these races seriously and judging by the amount of money I have put out for flame retardant suits this year, also very safe!

Come on, People! Just because I write about a sadistic midget beating his girlfriend and a cannibalistic meth cook, it does not mean that is what actually happened or that I EVEN knew these people! Just because I write about drugs, booze, whores and bacon does not mean I am wrapping whores in Bacon, chewing up my Vicodins and washing them down with Gin while shooting up Heroin in the bathroom stall of a Bus stop in Flagstaff!

Most of the time, my life is pretty boring and mundane...Wash the dishes, write a few pages, play some Playstation, kiss on the Lovely, drink a few beers...big fucking deal!

Every now and then, however....

No,I have never been afraid to explore the Dark Side of Life and yes, I sometimes revel in the dirt, the grime, the Essentially Wrong of the underbelly of the unwashed Masses.

However, I have tried in earnest(and in vain, at times.) to not form a career out of it.

For the biggest part of my life, I tried to BE the fucktards that I write about. My heroes, my enemies, my ex's, my bums, my punk drummers, my junkies, my whores, my killers and even my midgets and My Self...they ALL live in my mind and dance the Slow Dance at the end of my fingertips.

I live precariously through them...

So try and calm the fuck down!
THESE STORIES ARE, AT THE LEAST, 40% FICTION!

So can everyone just calm down?

This webpage is not about You and I...It is not about Right and Wrong...It is not even about Me...

It is about the Story!

The everlasting gobstopper, the Eternal, the Primal, the One story that we have all been telling since the dawn of Man.

We All tell it, either through words, or music, or our Work, or our Art, our Faith

or lack of Faith.

We are All telling this story...I will promise to respect yours even if you will not respect mine.