[g.o.b.'s reaction to any mention of his parents engaging in sexual intercourse]
when you’re drained, where else can you pour yourself? how about the bedroom bathroom’s sink at 3:36 am EST? or the back room of a hardly happy hour before a show, setting up slowly. liquid losers give a shout. let the future barstools of america know they’ve got roots…ancestors. i traced my lineage back to a disney resort hotel. see my father: tall awkward full of it. mother: beautiful back then loud love. they met after a blood knuckly brawl on the sawdust floor of your favorite watering hole. i call myself a pacifist. i was a poser from the first. pretending to be down with a town before my time. all i really know is a mullet, moustache-lover of a mother. a dad playing salty swagger and surprise. air guitar in a bar. no guitars in the bar. no stairway denied.
[i lack gumption]
i had these wide eyes once. i kept them open, up nights, burnt bright. it just got so hard to keep them from rolling around. now, i’m all caught up from half hearted handshakes and every single sloppy salute. left behind by “historic heartaches” and a convenience i call youth. i remember standing unblinking and thinking: good and evil, up and down, black and white. i used to wear all of these different hats at once, depending on my general mood…for whatever face i had to fit. i was a son, sibling, lover, life liver, go getter, risk taker, difference maker. oh potential. oh my great big heart. please don’t break my lemonheads rip off. these days i find the only hat i own says, “sleeps late and talks too much.” hey there, hi there, ho there.
[ww3]
i try to think about world war three, but i have to go to work. i try to spend some time thinking about the end of time, but there’s a couple of girls i’d like to try and see while i still sort of have a chance to. now it’s six o clock. i turn that tv on. i’m thinking about war. i can’t seem to find it anywhere anymore. there’s just a couple of music videos that aren’t all that interesting. an awards show extravaganza of some sort. a recipe for some seven minute cheesecake…and an interview with a mildly successful college football coach. while unemployment’s going up. while gas prices join in. i’d rather spend some quality time with the folks that matter most to me than to join the balding uncle brigade…sitting around bitching about everything. then i come back with all my father’s friends: good cop, bad cop…there’s mediocre cop and then there’s me. all my towering college textbooks tell me one thing. they say “you shouldn’t have grown up.”
[h.c. of the n.y.j.]
you’d think these people had never worked a day in their whole lives. so much impatience for so little time. i know a couple of geniuses who’ll never leave their house… apparently everyone else goes anywhere they please. i am much too young to wear that jacket of yours; the one you take in and let out every few weeks. you’re just looking for the right arm’s length and i will be more than just a decent fit when i’m through. i know a handful of mediocre kids who never leave their rooms. they just keep screaming at a wall. one day, those walls will scream back. i hope those walls break us down. it’ll serve us right. i know a city full of converts. they’re all just itching to be preached to.
[the riceman cometh]
let them eat when and where they will. we’ll see them all in purgatory, in bargain buzzbin hell. no one gets too tedious on our watch. we simply won’t watch them. so let them feast on all their famished fanatics. we’ll just rage respectfully when we can.
[so much sweat]
on such and such a day, what’s his name told you know that girl all about that other guy from sometime last week at that place in town. because everyone’s doing it these days. well, i only walk where i’m wanted. i only sit when i’m waiting. i’ve never ran anywhere. crawling is for babies and drunks. on so and so road, the bus dropped some kid off and he saw me and some friends and he smiled and said “hello.” no one’s been doing that lately. i have not walked in years. i can’t recall the last time i stood up. up.
[anything can happen in new york city]
all autistic artists are lining up with songs they can’t sing. they can’t sing enough. their painting pictures of all the pictures they took. your swimming smile is my sinking look. when freshly shaved, their behavior is best. at worst, they’re bearded with a fist for a chest. no one really bathes right anymore. those thirty second showers never get into your pores. if you go to work dirty, you’re bound to do some dirty work. all subversive suburbanites have set their sights on the city. they’ll be spit out by sunrise. there’s already too much to swallow. you’re form is too easy to follow. we’ve got tools for every trade, but only shovels come in handy at the shit parade. our pitched fits, the missed hits by misfits. just push play and wait through the tape hiss. you’ll hear something soon enough. we can’t sing enough. hey, if you’ve got a thumb i guess you’ll want a gun. please be careful of your feet.
[get awkward]
night once had a life worth living. now i can’t keep awake long enough to see anything interesting. don’t get me wrong, i still yawn at dawn, but now it’s from waking. i’m never nodding off. i slept through all of you getting crazy like clockwork. my watch always says “too late.” so why wear it out? why wear it out when it wears me out? if you believe that “belly up to the bar, boys!” shit, i’ve got some land and a van to sell you. when one of them says he’s one of us we’d be damned dead to disagree. who are we if not a reflection of them, of you, of me. we’re all the same leak on the same boat. we all treat water to keep afloat. most of us drown with our sorrows while our tomorrows wash us up as wrecked, wretched waste. we still line up for a taste of how the other half lives. you fat cats eating hot dogs.
[bastards and lists]
i want a one hour work week. i want to roll my tobacco in hundred dollar bills. i want waste and a waist mom would be proud of. i’m going to get some stock in sleep, i hear it’s going sky-high this year. hey, captain s.u.v. and mr. mc b.m.w. if you won’t live like me do you think i can live like you? i want to buy some love and get my sex in secret. i want to know how much i cost. i want to know how much we’re worth. what’s worth it. oh, what’s worth it. i want a life like lipton. just add water and warmth.
and laughter ensues