Us Skyboys fought well
Hurled great clumps of moon rock
Monsters by thousands
Stormed our sky docks.
A roaring great battle
The best of the age
Books written in ink
Will light me on their page.
We drove them away
Each tail between legs
Their terrible scales
Flashed bright with red rage.
We ate fat Moon Pies
Drank glasses of cheese
We partied all night
Until we were ordered to leave.
Out flew the last Sunboat
But I was hot under the skin
I relived the great Battle
While they sailed off on the Wind.
I beat all of the monsters
Down in Moon Crater Four
And now I'm alone in space
No one comes this way
Anymore.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Cosmic Humor
My friend E.M. gave me a book to read—The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's lovely, Lovely. There is a moment when the main character Charlie is sitting around with all of his friends and everyone is just sitting there, getting it, and he says, "I feel infinite." That's good, that's a truth—and here, in Austin, I can feel slivers, shivers of that. Usually it's looking up at stars that does it for me. If I ever actually look I feel very small, and the world and space and the universe feels very big, and I feel like an ant on top of the Himalayas. The thing is, the world is big, and it used to scare me so much I didn't think about it. Now, I think about it in small sips. Let my brain open up to infinity in little bursts, and the bursts are so bright and so good that that scares me a little too, but it's so big and so grand that I have to love it, and I do, and I'm working to get to a place where I can taste it all the time always without shutting any of it out and I'm getting there and it's exciting and whew.
Which makes me think about people with Cosmic Humor. I like those people.
Three nights ago I slid down a piss slide. What I mean is—it was a piss slide. Someone had pissed on it. I was at the park with E.M. and her friends T.M. and S.P. We were howling at the moon, which is what you do at night in a park with friends. There was a twisty slide I had to go down, and I did, and I said, Damn that slide was wet! And it was. And I said, Hey E.M. come see—isn't my butt wet? So E.M., in her infinite generosity, came and patted down my butt. That's a wet butt, she said.
Meanwhile our howls had attracted a pack of prowling high school boys. I knew they were in high school because one time one of their voices cracked, and all the other times they were being Asshole Youths. Later, my friends told me that one of the Asshole Youths said, Don't slide on that slide, we pissed on it. I did not hear this, but I heard the word piss and I heard the word slide, and I then knew that my jeans were connected to the inside of one—or all—of these boys' bladders in a way I had not anticipated. In short—their territory had been marked.
But you know? I had to laugh. T.M., bless his soul, was livid for me. He is very soft spoken and only threw comments over his shoulder as we retreated to the parking lot, but he kept saying, I can't believe it, I can't believe it. I don't remember what S.P. said but I think she was trying to judge my reaction. I didn't know either of them well, but I think they were surprised that I laughed.
E.M. was laughing too because she has a Cosmic Sense of Humor. That's the whole deal—you look at yourself from far enough away, from a star in the milky way, from the edge of the universe, everything is Pretty Funny. Relationship shit. Family shit. School shit. Piss on my pants shit. I'm no damn saint and I get as rattled as the next person, but I'm thankful for those moments where my brain is in the right place and I can just laugh.
Then E.M. said a Thing, which was—I don't care if I slide down it, or you, and it's funny. But that's fucked up that they would piss on a slide that my little sister might go down.
And then it wasn't so funny anymore, because she was right. And that was a pretty fucked up thing they did. Because the park was at an elementary school. And if my ass hadn't slid that slide clean, hundreds of elementary-school students would have piss jeans—and there's nothing funny about that.
Well, maybe a little funny, but only if you're feeling a little Sadistic and a little Dark. And sometimes that's an okay thing, too. Those are the limits. Sometimes my stepbrother D.S. accidentally makes a joke about my dead mom and somehow, some way, we laugh. And I mean hard. And if I ever try to explain it to someone else it sounds sick. And we sound sick. And they don't get it. And I guess not many people really could. But it's funny because he's my brother and I love him and my mom died and he accidentally made a your-mother's-a-whore joke and I still love him and it didn't hurt my feelings so, pretty soon, the only option is to laugh hysterically because what else can you do?
And maybe we are a little Sick. But if that's Sick, Lord my Lord, I do not want to be Well.
Which makes me think about people with Cosmic Humor. I like those people.
Three nights ago I slid down a piss slide. What I mean is—it was a piss slide. Someone had pissed on it. I was at the park with E.M. and her friends T.M. and S.P. We were howling at the moon, which is what you do at night in a park with friends. There was a twisty slide I had to go down, and I did, and I said, Damn that slide was wet! And it was. And I said, Hey E.M. come see—isn't my butt wet? So E.M., in her infinite generosity, came and patted down my butt. That's a wet butt, she said.
Meanwhile our howls had attracted a pack of prowling high school boys. I knew they were in high school because one time one of their voices cracked, and all the other times they were being Asshole Youths. Later, my friends told me that one of the Asshole Youths said, Don't slide on that slide, we pissed on it. I did not hear this, but I heard the word piss and I heard the word slide, and I then knew that my jeans were connected to the inside of one—or all—of these boys' bladders in a way I had not anticipated. In short—their territory had been marked.
But you know? I had to laugh. T.M., bless his soul, was livid for me. He is very soft spoken and only threw comments over his shoulder as we retreated to the parking lot, but he kept saying, I can't believe it, I can't believe it. I don't remember what S.P. said but I think she was trying to judge my reaction. I didn't know either of them well, but I think they were surprised that I laughed.
E.M. was laughing too because she has a Cosmic Sense of Humor. That's the whole deal—you look at yourself from far enough away, from a star in the milky way, from the edge of the universe, everything is Pretty Funny. Relationship shit. Family shit. School shit. Piss on my pants shit. I'm no damn saint and I get as rattled as the next person, but I'm thankful for those moments where my brain is in the right place and I can just laugh.
Then E.M. said a Thing, which was—I don't care if I slide down it, or you, and it's funny. But that's fucked up that they would piss on a slide that my little sister might go down.
And then it wasn't so funny anymore, because she was right. And that was a pretty fucked up thing they did. Because the park was at an elementary school. And if my ass hadn't slid that slide clean, hundreds of elementary-school students would have piss jeans—and there's nothing funny about that.
Well, maybe a little funny, but only if you're feeling a little Sadistic and a little Dark. And sometimes that's an okay thing, too. Those are the limits. Sometimes my stepbrother D.S. accidentally makes a joke about my dead mom and somehow, some way, we laugh. And I mean hard. And if I ever try to explain it to someone else it sounds sick. And we sound sick. And they don't get it. And I guess not many people really could. But it's funny because he's my brother and I love him and my mom died and he accidentally made a your-mother's-a-whore joke and I still love him and it didn't hurt my feelings so, pretty soon, the only option is to laugh hysterically because what else can you do?
And maybe we are a little Sick. But if that's Sick, Lord my Lord, I do not want to be Well.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
A collection of random things
No writing in a while makes me a sad man. Writing now, again—that makes me happy. Here are some Random Thoughts:
I came home and the house across the street was naked. A tree too big for arms sat and grew there my whole life. Now it is chopped down and there is only a stump left. I decided that I will write a note and put it on the stump. The note will go like this:
I am a stump,
It's sad to see.
At the very least,
Please sit on me?
Two nights ago I was Very Content—it made me feel like I could evaporate. No, not quite—I felt my molecules slowly separate, like they carefully shed their charge and drifted lazily away so I was just a collection of atoms in air.
I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere in our house always glittering around the edges of my eyes. I find them and I try to catch them and rescue them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—they drown themselves on the counter in slips of thin water. I want to say hey you're so stupid stop flying inside there's nothing good in here for you, but the air conditioning is on, and it is awful nice, and so I can't blame them.
I hated Making a Move. In high school—I could never do it right.
Hey man, you were with her last night? Did you make a move?
What, you took her to the movies? So did you make a move?
Dude, I made a move last night. You did? Yeah. You did? Yeah.
Because in high school how the hell are you supposed to know when to Make a Move, and how are you supposed to know when to go in for you first kiss, and how are you supposed to know how to use your lips and what Feels Good, and how are you supposed to, and how are you supposed to
High school was filled with a lot of How Are You Supposed To...?s My first kiss on the lips ever was with my friend C.W. It was in the script of a play. And I tried to play it cool because I'm a junior in high school and of course I've had my first kiss already. No—I was all sweat and butterflies, and I went in and pecked her on the lips and I felt weird and I was both thankful and sad. Sad because it had taken me until I was 17 to get my first kiss, thankful because it was C.W. and I love her and it's a Pretty Cool Thing that she was my first kiss. Plus, I knew to Make a Move, because it said in the script, He kisses her.
Are you ever with an insecure person and a Wishing Event happens? You find an eyelash, there's a shooting star, the clock turns 11:11—point is, they say, Make a wish. Everyone's done that. But have you ever been with an insecure person who loves you and they say, Make a wish, but what they really said was, Make a wish about me and about us, please. And then they ask, Did you make a good wish? But what they really said was, Did you make a wish about me? And that makes me upset and it makes me feel like my dreams have to be about another person and I don't like that. Maybe I want to make a wish about you, maybe I don't. But don't hijack my wishes.
I came home and the house across the street was naked. A tree too big for arms sat and grew there my whole life. Now it is chopped down and there is only a stump left. I decided that I will write a note and put it on the stump. The note will go like this:
I am a stump,
It's sad to see.
At the very least,
Please sit on me?
Two nights ago I was Very Content—it made me feel like I could evaporate. No, not quite—I felt my molecules slowly separate, like they carefully shed their charge and drifted lazily away so I was just a collection of atoms in air.
I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere in our house always glittering around the edges of my eyes. I find them and I try to catch them and rescue them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—they drown themselves on the counter in slips of thin water. I want to say hey you're so stupid stop flying inside there's nothing good in here for you, but the air conditioning is on, and it is awful nice, and so I can't blame them.
I hated Making a Move. In high school—I could never do it right.
Hey man, you were with her last night? Did you make a move?
What, you took her to the movies? So did you make a move?
Dude, I made a move last night. You did? Yeah. You did? Yeah.
Because in high school how the hell are you supposed to know when to Make a Move, and how are you supposed to know when to go in for you first kiss, and how are you supposed to know how to use your lips and what Feels Good, and how are you supposed to, and how are you supposed to
High school was filled with a lot of How Are You Supposed To...?s My first kiss on the lips ever was with my friend C.W. It was in the script of a play. And I tried to play it cool because I'm a junior in high school and of course I've had my first kiss already. No—I was all sweat and butterflies, and I went in and pecked her on the lips and I felt weird and I was both thankful and sad. Sad because it had taken me until I was 17 to get my first kiss, thankful because it was C.W. and I love her and it's a Pretty Cool Thing that she was my first kiss. Plus, I knew to Make a Move, because it said in the script, He kisses her.
Are you ever with an insecure person and a Wishing Event happens? You find an eyelash, there's a shooting star, the clock turns 11:11—point is, they say, Make a wish. Everyone's done that. But have you ever been with an insecure person who loves you and they say, Make a wish, but what they really said was, Make a wish about me and about us, please. And then they ask, Did you make a good wish? But what they really said was, Did you make a wish about me? And that makes me upset and it makes me feel like my dreams have to be about another person and I don't like that. Maybe I want to make a wish about you, maybe I don't. But don't hijack my wishes.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Chocolate, Baby
I just spent a lot of time talking to Chocolate the food server in my dining hall.
He always calls me Baby with that smooth jazz sway that makes me feel like I could pick up a trumpet and just go.
His given name is Daniel, but at work there were always too many Daniels, so he asked people to call him Chocolate. Why Chocolate? I did not ask. No one would call him that until one of the younger managers walked into work one day with a "Good morning, Chocolate," and then it was done.
I don't think the chicken tenders he was cooking cooked all the way through. I think I was distracting him.
Chocolate came from Mississippi with his then wife. His then wife's family came with them in an uninvited caravan and settled four houses down. They ruined the marriage. Chocolate said his then wife's grandmother told her she couldn't have any more kids after having had three, and one day she got her tubes tied without telling Chocolate. I don't know if that ended the marriage, but the way he talked about it, it might as well have been the Last Straw.
Chocolate has three kids. Two sons and one daughter. The oldest is 35, the youngest 21. They grew up with their grandparents, though I did not ask Why. I did not ask what they do, either. I told him about my two brothers, how Juan Carlos was a business man and Darren was a theater director in China. Baby, Chocolate said, your Momma must be proud. And I thought about reminding him that Darren wasn't blood related, and then telling him that Juan Carlos has a different mom than me, then I thought about telling him that actually my mom passed away and so it was in fact my step mom who was very proud. I said, "Yes, she is very proud of us."
When I told him I was a writer he was impressed. Chocolate is the kind of person who makes you feel good no matter what you say, and I had him stomping around on the kitchen's raised plastic mats, bent over from laughing at our jokes about Californian hospitality. In California, if two Southerners were to fly by each other like two ships in the night, the only words they'd yell to each other before careening off, laughing, would be, "The hospitality!"
Chocolate is married again, to a Latina woman named Maria. Chocolate was going to visit his son and his ex-wife one weekend and he asked if he could bring Maria with him. Sure, they said. Chocolate said that when his ex-wife saw Maria the claws came out. I laughed. What is that? I said. What is it about dating a woman of another race, and when your ex-girlfriend sees that she goes crazy? What is that?
Baby, said Chocolate, stomping the mats, That's called an ass whooping.
One time Maria told Chocolate to listen to the radio. 107.3, somewhere around there. It's a Christian station. Chocolate mentioned how good the Lord was and I felt myself recoil, which I thought was wrong of me, so I tried to ask him questions. He said he had a hunger in his skin that wasn't satiated by sex. I didn't exactly understand, though I kind of did. I didn't ask much about that.
Chocolate's been working for Stanford Dining for 13 years. I forget. Whenever I see Obama on the news talking about the working family I always think, Who? It's hard to see it when you're in school around a bunch of people who will be making six figures in a couple years. It's people like Chocolate and his wife, Maria, who just got a second job to help pay for bills.
Chocolate recently went to his wife and said, Baby, we're moving out of the apartment. Why? She said. He told her that they were wasting all their money and that she didn't have a retirement plan, which was true. Chocolate had bought an RV, with a flat screen television for his lady. He said they've saved up $4,000 already.
That's good money, I said.
Yeah and you know what, he said. Now I want to put it all into my '57 Chevy.
We both bent over and he stomped the black plastic mat and I held onto the metal counter top so I could let out a good laugh without losing my balance.
He always calls me Baby with that smooth jazz sway that makes me feel like I could pick up a trumpet and just go.
His given name is Daniel, but at work there were always too many Daniels, so he asked people to call him Chocolate. Why Chocolate? I did not ask. No one would call him that until one of the younger managers walked into work one day with a "Good morning, Chocolate," and then it was done.
I don't think the chicken tenders he was cooking cooked all the way through. I think I was distracting him.
Chocolate came from Mississippi with his then wife. His then wife's family came with them in an uninvited caravan and settled four houses down. They ruined the marriage. Chocolate said his then wife's grandmother told her she couldn't have any more kids after having had three, and one day she got her tubes tied without telling Chocolate. I don't know if that ended the marriage, but the way he talked about it, it might as well have been the Last Straw.
Chocolate has three kids. Two sons and one daughter. The oldest is 35, the youngest 21. They grew up with their grandparents, though I did not ask Why. I did not ask what they do, either. I told him about my two brothers, how Juan Carlos was a business man and Darren was a theater director in China. Baby, Chocolate said, your Momma must be proud. And I thought about reminding him that Darren wasn't blood related, and then telling him that Juan Carlos has a different mom than me, then I thought about telling him that actually my mom passed away and so it was in fact my step mom who was very proud. I said, "Yes, she is very proud of us."
When I told him I was a writer he was impressed. Chocolate is the kind of person who makes you feel good no matter what you say, and I had him stomping around on the kitchen's raised plastic mats, bent over from laughing at our jokes about Californian hospitality. In California, if two Southerners were to fly by each other like two ships in the night, the only words they'd yell to each other before careening off, laughing, would be, "The hospitality!"
Chocolate is married again, to a Latina woman named Maria. Chocolate was going to visit his son and his ex-wife one weekend and he asked if he could bring Maria with him. Sure, they said. Chocolate said that when his ex-wife saw Maria the claws came out. I laughed. What is that? I said. What is it about dating a woman of another race, and when your ex-girlfriend sees that she goes crazy? What is that?
Baby, said Chocolate, stomping the mats, That's called an ass whooping.
One time Maria told Chocolate to listen to the radio. 107.3, somewhere around there. It's a Christian station. Chocolate mentioned how good the Lord was and I felt myself recoil, which I thought was wrong of me, so I tried to ask him questions. He said he had a hunger in his skin that wasn't satiated by sex. I didn't exactly understand, though I kind of did. I didn't ask much about that.
Chocolate's been working for Stanford Dining for 13 years. I forget. Whenever I see Obama on the news talking about the working family I always think, Who? It's hard to see it when you're in school around a bunch of people who will be making six figures in a couple years. It's people like Chocolate and his wife, Maria, who just got a second job to help pay for bills.
Chocolate recently went to his wife and said, Baby, we're moving out of the apartment. Why? She said. He told her that they were wasting all their money and that she didn't have a retirement plan, which was true. Chocolate had bought an RV, with a flat screen television for his lady. He said they've saved up $4,000 already.
That's good money, I said.
Yeah and you know what, he said. Now I want to put it all into my '57 Chevy.
We both bent over and he stomped the black plastic mat and I held onto the metal counter top so I could let out a good laugh without losing my balance.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Johnny Victory will have a story
I heard a radio show today about a guy who, when he was a teenager, was in a car accident that left him in a coma. His buddy's truck flipped and rolled and rolled. His buddy flew out the window. His buddy just got a few scratches, no problem. Our guy, Ian, his ribs were shattered and they punctured all sorts of important things and there was plenty of blood in places blood didn't belong, and he had a 1% chance of living but he lived anyway.
He was in a coma for a while, unresponsive. Another thing about our guy Ian was that he flew planes. Since he was a baby he was fascinated with planes, and he took lessons every weekend from a pilot named Johnny Victory. When he was in a coma his parents played him the theme song from Top Gun, which always makes me think of nicknames like Maverick and Iceman and Goose, and now I'll think of Johnny Victory—what a name.
In addition to the theme song from Top Gun, Johnny Victory made a cassette tape that was a flying lesson. It walked the listener through all the checks, led them through everything to get the plane up and out. And our guy Ian's parents put that cassette tape in a Walkman, and they put those Walkman headphones on their kid, and Ian just listened and listened and in the radio show Ian says that he heard everything—the Top Gun theme song, the flight lessons, his parents talking to him, the doctors asking him to respond.
There's no point. Ian, the kid whose chance of recovery was one in one hundred, he lived, and he made a full recovery, and he still flies planes. That's a Good Thing.
The whole point of this is that I like the name Johnny Victory and Johnny Victory deserves his own story and I think I'll write it.
He was in a coma for a while, unresponsive. Another thing about our guy Ian was that he flew planes. Since he was a baby he was fascinated with planes, and he took lessons every weekend from a pilot named Johnny Victory. When he was in a coma his parents played him the theme song from Top Gun, which always makes me think of nicknames like Maverick and Iceman and Goose, and now I'll think of Johnny Victory—what a name.
In addition to the theme song from Top Gun, Johnny Victory made a cassette tape that was a flying lesson. It walked the listener through all the checks, led them through everything to get the plane up and out. And our guy Ian's parents put that cassette tape in a Walkman, and they put those Walkman headphones on their kid, and Ian just listened and listened and in the radio show Ian says that he heard everything—the Top Gun theme song, the flight lessons, his parents talking to him, the doctors asking him to respond.
There's no point. Ian, the kid whose chance of recovery was one in one hundred, he lived, and he made a full recovery, and he still flies planes. That's a Good Thing.
The whole point of this is that I like the name Johnny Victory and Johnny Victory deserves his own story and I think I'll write it.
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