The Donut Thief

 I'm a derelict... always have been... and if there's one thing i like it's fucking over the system, getting over on the man as we like to say, obviously anyone who has perused the Wilderness Years understands this, my whole young adult life was spent living outside the "system" or as Peter Tosh would say outside of the Shit-stem, slinging weed to survive and then, for lack of a better term, thrive all while happily flipping the bird to the cops, the tax man, the guvment... of course now i'm an upstanding citizen, at least on paper, the not so proud denizen of a lily white suburb filled with affluent wankers who i have almost nothing in common with... i've stated before it's almost a badge of honor as i drive Disaster to school in the morning that i drive the Shitmobile, the car i work in, an old beat up Nissan that now has the passenger side front wheel well molding taped up with Gorilla Tape to go along with the minor damage incurred when the I-mac got in a minor accident... (and of course it totally wasn't his fault turning left in front of someone as according to the boyo that person was speeding, the boy shuns accountability like fat man shunning salad)... the beauty being that when jockeying for position in the cue to drop off Disaster those with the high-end precision autos seem to think i'd have no problem trading paint as the gearheads would say... and they may be right... 

The beloved Shitmobile is the fucking third car around here... yeah man it's all white people problems in Dumbfuckistan, i keep the damn thing running mainly so the boyos have something to drive and i can work a couple days a week to keep in weed and shrooms as well as concert tickets, books, records, yes the plight of the suburban dad is such a struggle and i know i don't have much to piss and moan about so i try to keep it to a minimum, the whole gig economy serf thing is ostensibly so i'm not at the benevolence of the BW because we all know how that would go... though with Chrimbo recently passed and the amount of shit the boyos got i often wonder about things around here (and i won't even get into the entitlement of the eldest boyo as it fucking infuriates me to know end) plus there's the ever present solar debacle which i'll address someday as the tree hugging hippie i am tries to help out Mother Earth (and in the end as energy prices rise i'll think i'll be proven right, fingers crossed) which bring me around to the title of this here missive, The Donut Thief...

I've always been good with money, understood how to budget, how to save, i reworked my gig hours with the BW to maximize my earnings while freeing time up to do more around the old homestead which means she won't have to hire workers, painters, etc and will ostensibly save us (see her) money... (as we know it's been well documented around here that it's her money) while actually allowing me to save a bit more while still enjoying myself... the BW now seems fully invested in getting my stuff out of the master bedroom (see hers) in order to have more closet space for herself while i am officially moved into the downstairs cave... the unspoken "uncoupling" as Gwyneth would say... (i often wonder what her family thinks as they now know we sleep in different rooms and if one paid attention have no physical contact, show no affection, in fact i laughed during the holidays when she said "why don't you hug me like that" as she watched her older brother hug his wife to which i replied, if you noticed my dear she hugged him first, got pretty quiet after that...) 

Humping groceries for the bourgeoisie is a bit physically demanding, which i like... one races around the store to get shit done, checks out, bags the stuff, loads the car, drives to destination, unloads car, usually up steps or long driveways or worse yet apartment buildings, then gets back on the app for the next batch... the obvious plus sides is i work alone and get to listen to tunes or footie matches or talk radio that ranges from the progressive political station to the futbol station to Conan O' Brien radio which is usually fucking hilarious... i tend to work in the morning and usually eat a quick breakfast before heading out with my giant bottle of water... hence during my workday i sometimes get a bit hungry...  (i'd be remiss if i didn't mention Zygmunt Bauman here for a minute, a writer and theorist who uses the term liquid modernity to describe the current shit show we live in, a theory based on the eroding stability of our culture both economically and socially as we all skip down the yellow brick road of technocracy and environmental destruction, with the gig economy being a prime example of the horror show we now live in, a place which is no longer stable but "fluid", where jobs can appear and vanish within days or weeks it seems, some soon to be replaced with AI yet with no plan on redistributing the wealth as a certain Ketamine loving dipshit often speaks of but never really plans to advocate or work to implement, this being only one aspect of liquid modernity but which the gig economy is a prime example of, it's not really stable, could fold at anytime, is reliant on people using it while also having enough serfs to keep it running, the veritable house of cards so to speak...) which brings me to what to do when hunger sets in and i need something to eat... 

Being a derelict one tends to find derelict solutions... the fact is this gig is based on speed and efficiency or what i call the ability to sort through the bullshit in order to minimize work and maximize earnings, something which i've become rather adept at over the last five years... so how does one get a little sustenance while serfing? i don't really want to sit in a drive thru or eat fast food though my solution is equally as unhealthy but also provides me with a modicum of joy... my life is something of one large conundrum, i can be incredibly disciplined while also being incredibly undisciplined all at the same time... i swim on a rigid and strict schedule mainly because i love it even when i'm tired and don't really feel like dragging myself to the pool i do... and always feel better for it... when it comes to my eating habits though i try to eat healthier i'll admit i often fall short... one of my weaknesses has always been maple donuts... now when one works in grocery stores there are certain large chains where the donuts are self serve and when one is a gig economy serf going through the self checkouts with a shit ton of items it's not as if anyone is really paying attention, in fact when the employees see me on my phone scanning and taking pictures of receipts they know i'm a gig economy serf... which in turn makes it very conducive and easy to lift donuts... and yes, guilty as charged... 

I'm not sure when the idea struck me or even when it started though it's really been in the last year or so that my donut thieving has taken off, mainly i think it stemmed from the fact i usually didn't have any cash on me and didn't want to use a credit/debit card to buy a donut for a $1.39 hence i realized that there was no way to know if i lifted my maple donut and if for some reason i was stopped and asked if i paid for my donut i'd of course feign horror and say, oh geez i forgot let me pay for that right now... criminals, even petty ones, always have backup plans, at least the good ones do... and so while i know they're not the healthiest thing for me they are so damn tasty it's hard to resist the temptation to get over on the man (in my own little way) and enjoy a delicious snack while i'm out humping groceries for the Bougies'... 

A side story to this tale is that one day while in the local mega-chain grocery store for some reason it wouldn't let me use the self checkout and so i realized i would actually have to buy my donut... the fuckwits who run and update the app are easily the most inept career wonks who probably spend an inordinate amount of their life worrying about the importance of their job but know pretty much fuck all about the actual shit we serfs do in making it work... so i went to the open lane next to me where a trans kid was working and checked out, i explained i was a gig serf but that the donut at the end was mine and needed to be rung up separately to which the Trans Kid and i struck up a lovely conversation about donuts where we discovered we were both lovers of the maple donut... let's just say this probably isn't the most enlightened area of suburban sprawl (the pool/gym i go to is a plaza over and chock full of red hat assholes aka entitled white guys) and not only is this kid trans but also not white... hence i'm sure they get their fair share of mumbled shitty comments or stares or called "dude" and whatnot... to me they're just a nice person ringing me out... so it was funny when the next time in that store the app for some reason made me use the full serve checkout (one never knows what the app is going to do) and i was hoping to lift a donut but realized i would have to shell out for it... after ringing out my orders i mentioned the donut and the Trans Kid smiled at me and said, it's free today honey, i smiled knowingly back and said thank you, hope you have a lovely day to which the Trans Kid smiled as i made my way to the exit... 

So yes... i'm a donut thief... granted i'm too old to be doing this shit but for some reason i chalk it up to some warped sense of civil disobedience, i had a short lived stint of employment working for this local mega-chain so i'm well aware of how shit they are, granted i hope the pay and benefits are better now but i don't know... one could call me a kleptomaniac or a derelict but i tend to think of myself as democratic socialist looking to redistribute the wealth one fucking donut at a time... one could say that's just me justifying my criminal impulses but i say fuck all that, man's gotta eat and since i'm here helping to add to their coffers i'm lifting my donut... fuck the capitalists... a one man revolution fighting against the hegemony one stolen donut at at time... 

Off the Couch

 I've never read Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again, i once had a copy and believe i still do sitting in a large bin of books in the old garage, truth is i have a shit ton of books and while i've read most of them some do sit and sit and seemingly never get read... but there was an article i once read by an author (whose name escapes me at the moment) about the books we have lying about that we don't read are just as vital as the books that we do read... interesting theory and one that brings a bit of solace to this philosophical loner as he paces the room and ponders all the while fending off the BW's admonishments to get rid of some of these books... problem is i can't... they're the only friends i have that are still local... 

It's said that as you get older it's harder to make friends, at least any meaningful friends and i now find myself in the position where all three of my best friends live in other cities... two of which who have moved in the last year... granted it's not like the old days where i ran the streets and met a bunch of people, now a night out means the next day i go to bed early and i do still regularly spend a night in with the mushrooms and the cats which is a bit like a night out... of course i was always one to do shit on my own, i have the advantage of one, being male, two being 6'4, three being perfectly okay with my own company... still i wouldn't mind a place to sit and toke and booze and wax philosophical, bullshit about the futbol, spin dub records or have the occasional night out at my favorite local boozer while not looking like the sad and lonely old man in a Clean, Well-lighted Place, though the more apt title might be A Dark and Smoky Dive... 

So what is our hero here to do? well under the current regime i've veritably thrown myself into "my studies", reading books by philosophers, critical theorists and political thinkers as well as some new fiction to just to keep my head from fucking exploding due to the aforementioned regimen of texts... it's like my own personal curriculum, my own degree, the self-educated human is the most dangerous to the hegemony so i figured fuck it, be as dangerous as possible, when out being a gig economy serf talk to people and hip them to books and ideas they may not be exposed to, drop the knowledge of Fred Hampton and others and explain we shouldn't be fighting each other over race or religion or sexual orientation but over the fucking class war that's currently taking place... don't look left, right or down, look up, those are the bastards...

In an effort to still get out of the house i've taken to perusing the web to see what sort of things are happening in my fair city and doing shit... one of which was stumbling upon a DJ set by the Channel One Soundsystem with Mikey Dread... better yet it was in some new spot i'd never been to, the kind of place that reminded me of my early years in the Burgh, basically a small, old warehouse repurposed to hold shows as well as teaching the local youth about production, sound and lights and staging and what not, community run and i'll just say fucking lovely... on this night there was Jamaican food, a bar where you had to donate for booze (they didn't have a liquor license so the way around this is "donations" instead of actually charging, i fucking love it) where i drank a shite beer of my youth, Hamm's, and a great set up where they had couches along with high tables and chairs towards the back but still in a place where one could see the stage... perfect for an aging stoner with a shite back... 

After enquiring about the smoking policy i planned my activity accordingly... the first DJ was a bit of an odd choice, not reggae or dub but a bit of house but more the poppy house side and so i made my way outside to smoke a special, a fine indica flower (GMO) sprinkled with some finer indica hash (Northern Lights)... i asked my compatriots outside if anyone would like to partake and once i mentioned the word "hash" a few ears perked up... one bloke took one hit, coughed, said damn that's strong, thanked me and went back inside... another guy hung in a bit longer and much like those bygone days i got a dose of the Hipster Yinzer, a species native to my fair city and one i hadn't encountered in quite some time... 

The Hipster Yinzer is an interesting species and one could go as far as having sub-species of this animal based on the neighborhood in which they grew up as the Hipster Yinzer is quite protective of their habitat, not being a native but having lived here long enough even i could be deemed a member of this species but believe i fall under the title Ersatz-Hipster Yinzer and since i didn't live in one specific neighborhood but more like an area, the East End (where i lived in North Oakland, Bloomfield, Friendship and Shadyside, hung out in Polish Hill and Lawrenceville)...and while i won't say i don't have that same level of emotional attachment to my old habitats it's slightly different... of course this is about the native Hipster Yinzer so let me get back on track..  some characteristics of the Hipster Yinzer are of course their undying love of the local sports teams or conversely the fact they don't care about the sports teams cuz that's "fucking lame", the aforementioned devout and religious levels of feelings towards their neighborhood (which i'll add is not a bad thing), a pride in having rarely if ever left the city, an exotic locale being at worst Erie or at best some eastern seaboard tourist town (like the one i used to work in...) these are just a few of the things as well as their own special accent and dialect called Pittsburghese... 

In this instance the Hipster Yinzer was from Carrick, what one might call a gritty part of town, a sorta non-descript neighborhood in the city with a mixed population so CHY (Carrick Hipster Yinzer) was fluent in both hip-hop, indie rawk, DJs and whatever other genre of music one might throw out at him, mainly because Hipster Yinzers tend to be experts in everything...  he walked over when i mentioned the hash and so i proceeded to pass him the joint and he and i and an African American gentleman began talking... there is a defining characteristic of the "i think i'm cool as fuck" Hipster Yinzer and that is this... they speak as if they are the UN, talking about how they're cool with everything (and some might be but it's also known some talk this shit but are not)... at one point my smoking buddy felt the need to express the fact that he was down with everyone- black, brown,, gay, straight, trans and anything else he could think to throw in, why? because our CHY was giving a  diatribe on the opening DJ set and while ostensibly i agreed with him, it was a bit of an odd choice, there was really no need to go into an in-depth critique in the manner our guy did here, in fact it was in his soliloquoy that he saw the Black Dude sorta look at him which lead to the diversion into how he was "down" with everyone... certain Hipster Yinzers have this strange talent of simultaneously praising something while at the same time shitting all over it and then trying smooth over the mess... sorta like what he did... 

Now being one of the fucking original hipsters i can't say i'm not a raging fucking dipshit as well, in fact i think it's almost part of the territory, we Gen X wankers who take some sort of strange pride in our Gen X-ness due to the fact we were the last of the feral children raised without tracking devices in our pockets, the internet, social media... the bright side? when one got their ass kicked we didn't have to relive it endlessly with fucking Tik Tok videos... lately as we Gen Xers skip towards the void i've noticed the pissing contest about age, and call me guilty as charged though i don't try to bring it up but on this night as we stood outside smoking a spliff the CHY brought up the fact that he was 47 and something something something, Black Dude stated he was 45 and i laughed and said i remember those days (told you i'm not immune) and after stating my age Black Dude said really? apparently i look younger than i am and then stated i believe it's my love of psychedelics and swimming that help maintain my youthful vigor... what a fucking laugh... shortly thereafter we said our goodbyes and i wandered back in and grabbed a seat at a high table and waited for the music to start... 

I found a seat at one of the tables that gave me a good view of the stage and settled in with my cheap beer ($3 can of Hamm's) and creaky back feeling much better after the hash-infused joint... the first song played was a hymn... at least to those of us who are what one might call devout followers and fans of this music... Selassie in the Chapel... fucking blinder, granted some of the crowd wondered how you dance to it but you don't dance to it you listen and appreciate the song and it's meaning... it was followed by a couple more Bob tunes, dubbed out effects tossed in here and there, Mikey Dread and Ras Sherby taking turns talking to the crowd between songs with Ras Sherby adding in some vocals during certain songs, the kids started dancing... it was heavy into the roots vibe which of course is right up my alley, i sat and grooved along enjoying the music and being out of the house... but as usual, even when i'm not off my head, strange things happen... 

As i was sitting at my table a young man came over, mid-20s, and asked if i knew anyone who was smoking weed? as this seemed like the kind of event which would be conducive to getting stoned, i smiled and pulled my pen from my pocket, his eyes light up and i handed it to him and said have at it... he took a few hits, turned and looked at me and stated, "that's fire" as the kids like to say... i told him i'm a lover of heavy indica strains and that this was one, Pre-98 Bubba Kush... though i still have no idea why it's called that and have never seen a Post 98 Bubba Kush... my new pal handed my pen back and asked about a notebook sitting on the table and i said i had no idea where it came from to which he grabbed it and the pen and started drawing, he said he was a pro skateboarder but that there was no money in it and that he had been in Europe for a bit, asked if i'd ever been to Barcelona and a few other  places and i explained i hadn't been across the pond for 25 years now but did make it twice in my youth, it being loud it was tough to carry on a conversation but my new friend tried but i really just wanted to listen to the tunes... 

It was around this time that an older gentleman wandered over, roughly around my age, he sheepishly waved hello and then began talking to Skate Rat... except it was a lot more touchy feely than one would expect, i could tell Skate Rat wanted his friend to keep it cool and so the older guy walked off and Skate Rat turned to me and smiled... then the older guy came back with a couple beers and took up, for lack of a better word, more canoodling, all over the Skate Rat, a few nibbles on his neck and such and at this point Skate Rat stood up and they had a brief conversation before the older guy walked away again but not before looking back at me with what one could call an almost pleading look... it was pure comedy and i wanted to inquire if Skate Rat didn't just happen to be a rent boy? it was quite obvious the older guy was smitten while Skate Rat was doing his best to downplay the fact there was more going on here than friendly banter... it was clear there was some sort of coupling taking place and after the older guy came over again, looking at me imploringly i almost leaned over and said, listen man i'm not trying to steal your boy here he just asked me for weed and being a kind and generous stoner i hooked him up, there is nothing to worry about as he is all yours as you two make a lovely couple... needless to say it was amusing to say the least and i slipped away as they canoodled some more... 

Granted i wouldn't have minded getting out on the old dancefloor as there were some rather fetching lasses out there (age appropriate mind you, Gen X girls out for the night and tearing it up and ridiculously attractive to the shut in) but alas i didn't want to do my Fred Sanford imitation as i limped and lurched with a bad back... of course a few more hits of the old Bubba Kush and i probably wouldn't have felt much, truth be told the super-joint did a swell number on any pain but i also realized i might actually hurt myself due to the medicinal effects... getting old is fucking grand! 

As the show wound down i stood near the door and when it ended i slipped out and into the cool November air, took in the city neighborhood and felt that pang i sometimes get realizing how i much i miss the city proper, walked around the block to my car and made my way home... another fine night out, never a dull moment and a reminder as to why i like to get out and do shit, yes predominantly on my own as part social misanthrope and part cultural anthropologist... 

Goodbye V. - a denouement

 And so here we are... is it the final scene? a final chapter? it seems to be but the truth is we never know when that final chapter is really written... and though this feels like it fits the description what has been resolved or explained? anything? everything? can both be true at the same time? and what happens when one chases ghosts only to actually catch one? the reality is we can't catch one as they will slide through our grasp just like the apparition the are... and so goes Veronica... the haunting sound of her voice through a phone line like an old recording, a cassette tape left in a box, dug out in the midst of cleaning out the spaces in my head, the old photographs, taken on disposable cameras, photos that have began to fade just a little as they recede into a private history once scribbled out in forgotten yellow-paged notebooks and found in those same old and dusty boxes... and then comes the hardest part, where one has to look back and understand the past while living with it in the present, where i have to look back and give a brutally honest assessment of the person who lived those things... which poses the question, what happens if the ghost you are chasing turns out to be you? 

As those final conversations took place and texts were exchanged i said i hoped that we would keep in touch from time to time... who knows if that will happen... and should it happen? one of the things that had popped into my mind once the waves of different emotions had rolled over me was this... how much damage had i done? not just to Veronica but to everyone around me? back when i was known as El Kono and now as the Big Hairy Carol Brady... what sort of destruction have i left in my wake? and can i correct it? 

I felt it was best to let things lie... we said our goodbyes in so many words and i explained that i would work on getting her a copy of that story, to give me some time but that i would let her know when i sent it... five or so days after she got back i received a text simply saying, "i can't wait to read our story", and of course the "our" in that sentence stuck, words being one of the most haunting things humans have created... then a week after that came another text, out of the blue that said, "can you explain to me why, in my entire life, everyone wants me to be the other woman and never just the woman?" followed by her apologizing and that she was just having a sleepless night... it arrived at 5am my time... laying there alone there was a sadness that blanketed me... again, how much fucking damage did i do to this poor girl? and how do i tell her i have no idea? that her intelligence, independence, fearlessness (not to mention her physical beauty) made her ridiculously attractive yet frightening at the same time? that it would take a fucking helluva man to handle her? i've never been one to believe in the "true love" bullshit, relationships all require work, have peaks and valleys, but maybe that guy, the guy, had stumbled into her life but was too wrapped up in his own little world to recognize it? and once again that quote came drifting back in... 

The question arose in my mind... had those brief few months in her life being involved with me fucked her up to this day? yes she said i was the first and only person to not only see her but hear her but what did that mean? had appearing out of thin air again fucking two and half decades later done it again? as we hear the music begin to drift in and the credits begin to roll i'll let the audience decide on that... the answer is probably yes and no with valid arguments for both sides... so to steal a stolen line from that last song posted, here we are... 

While there was a bit of selfishness in the act of tracking her down and contacting her there were no ulterior motives in it other than to see how she has been, to hope that she was healthy and happy and all that greeting card bullshit we wish upon those we have loved, it's not the first time i've done this... there is a curiosity to see how the people who have affected my life have been... there are things learned from those interactions and this is no different... the fact that she so close changed the dynamic of the situation and there is a part of me that wishes she would have been in Hawaii, that maybe it would have been better... yet the fact she was this close was probably the best thing that could happen, maybe the way to heal old wounds is to open them back up and let them heal properly so to speak, to reach a point where one can be brutally honest and lay down those cards and accept the outcome... 

Distance provides perspective when painting the canvas of our lives... after the initial rush of blood, of the longing and lust and love, the infatuation and daydreams, there comes the point of sobering reality, the point where the high wears off and one realizes that high may be detrimental to the person as a whole... ask any addict, we understand that feeling acutely yet it won't stop us from chasing that high and if/when the moment of clarity comes and we grasp it, roll it around in our minds and with any luck learn from it and move on... we don't forget it, we don't ignore it, we just understand it a little better, the world isn't going to stop spinning and so we move through days... 

And so what have i gained from this foray into chasing ghosts? extraordinarily enough it has reminded me, given me the opportunity to go back through the vaults so to speak, to re-write and revise these stories from the lounge, from my life, it gives me the impetus to possibly send them out into more than just the blogosphere, like i said earlier what happens if the ghost you're chasing turns out to be you? and the you reminds you of what you really wanted to do? the circular thinking of the half-ass philosophical stoner, the social misanthrope navigating a world that seems entirely absurd and writing about it for better or worse, not under the illusion of money or fame but because it's what he (i) does to make sense of things... and because it's the only work i enjoy doing, in fact it's not really work at all... printing off the pages, re-reading, re-writing, those acts spurring new writing, in a way i need to thank Veronica again as the history of her and i seems to be that she has always given me much more than i have given her... 

The epilogue... once again it was a beautiful foray into living... and being life it wasn't perfect, it was part comedy and part tragedy, there was beauty and love, there was pain and heartache, it was that beautiful mess which we call existence if we are brave and daring enough to attempt to live it... in the end, amidst all the back and forth between Veronica and i, i realized there is one thing i had never told her... and so while i toiled and tinkered with a dying printer in hopes of putting it in a letter i finally succumbed to the easy and modern way and texted it to her... it stated very simply that i had told her a lot of things over the past couple of weeks but the one thing i had never told was that i was sorry... sorry that i made her feel despicable, sorry for making what she termed, convenient choices, sorry that i was so wrapped up in my own world that i was unable to see anyone else's... and yet even then i was lying... because i would not trade those times for anything... 

So once again, here we are... the last words of a tale that i needed to tell... but this time she'll get those last words, that when it came to love she stated simply, always have and always will, there is no doubt that what happened between the two of us has had a lasting impact on both of us... but as Veronica so aptly put it... it needs to be buried, again... and this time it will be buried... for good... Goodbye V.   

cue the music... roll the credits... 

Some Weeks are Weirder than Others - V. pt 2

 I barely slept... i lay on my makeshift bed with Phat Paco purring on my chest and stared at the ceiling, i realized i was smiling, i realized i might actually get to do something that i never thought i'd get to do... See Veronica... fucking hell, it was a lot to process... and so after sleeping in fits and starts the sun came up and i got on with things, got Disaster off to school, got ready to do some gig economy serfing but the truth was my mind was racing, i was physically having to catch my breath on a regular basis, she affected me that much... out driving for my serf gig at one point i almost ran a stop sign and wrecked the car, i was so lost in thought about Veronica that it seemed there was a haze in front of me, all i could do was think about her, think about actually seeing her, i was trying to be cool about things but i was a fucking mess, all i wanted to do was get in my car and drive up to see her... but i didn't, i couldn't unless she said yes... and even after the beauty of our conversation i was still scared... why? why did she frighten me? all these years later and i still thought there was some element of her playing me when i knew she was not... how one might ask? basically because she was a far more decent human being than i was, raised by loving and kind parents who she adored, during our conversation she stated that at one point she had moved home for a year to take care of her father after he suffered a heart attack, she spoke of the love between her parents, about how her mother was a hopeless romantic... and then added that she had shown her mother my message and that she was absolutely floored, she loved it so much and as Veronica stated her mom thought i was a wonderful guy... a statement that could be easily debated by simply looking at the situation... 

When i had sent that first message i was hoping there would be a chance to talk and the fact, maybe subconsciously, was that there was safety in distance, Hawaii is a long way away, knowing she was this close that safety had now almost become a tyranny of distance, just far enough yet close enough, the pull was so strong it was damn near unbearable... once again i was transported back fucking 25 years, a lovesick boy in a man's body not knowing what to do with himself or how to contain himself... head swimming and spinning and thoughts bouncing around at high rates of speed... Monday passed and i somehow managed not to call her, of course i sent a few texts but i didn't want to appear needy? desperate? and so i walked through my day in a daze, there was no sense to it other than the feelings she had conjured in this fucking daydreaming muppet but alas Veronica was and is wiser than i... 

Our next conversations were shorter but just as lovely and i would subtlety ask about seeing her and she would state she was still thinking about it... it was then revealed that she would be only forty minutes away on her last night and into the next day before heading to the airport that night... of course now the wheels were really spinning... as i said over the early part of the week the conversations were great, maybe too great, as they seemed to stir, in both of us, what was once there and maybe the possibility of what could be... but we all know how it ends, we always knew how it ends, maybe had i the courage and fearlessness of Henry Miller i'd have packed my bags and got in the car, bought a ticket to Honolulu... but we all know i couldn't do that, i wouldn't do that, not while the boyos were still reliant on a somewhat functional household (not to mention certain cats i'd never abandon)... but the mind, the emotions can get the better of us and the chronic daydreamer in me would think about it... 

And so we danced... we danced around the things, we flirted and talked and told each other things... then it happened... i left a message for her... she was out in the country where she grew up and told me certain places like her sister's house barely had cell service, it stated i had devised a way to get up north that last night or next day, that it wouldn't be a problem at all and it would be an altruistic visit, nothing more, no shedding of the clothes (something that would be debatable if we ended up in the same room and given an opportunity) but just a chance to see each other in person, who knew if we'd ever get that chance again... in my head i had half convinced myself that the universe was smiling on me, as if i had somehow done something that merited a reward such as this.... but the truth is i merited no such reward, had not earned or deserved anything of the sort and soon enough i would understand that and of course it would be Veronica who would lay it out... 

When next we spoke i could tell things had shifted, much like that day in her apartment when she had finally broke it off... she stated simply she did not want to see me... that statement more than stung, if she had buckled the knees previously with joy this time it buckled the knees like a clean shot right on the chin... why? i asked... and she very plainly said, because it gets us nowhere, nothing will change and it was best for her to not see me, she then stated that when we were together she was always torn, conflicted about the situation, that she would never want to be the one in the BW's shoes and that being on the other side of it made her feel horrible... she is a far more decent human than i and i understood exactly what she was saying... she had a moral and ethical grounding and the fact i was "attached", that she was "the other woman" was not something she ever wished to be, on either side of the situation... and i understood it perfectly... there are things that will someday get written about but i had been on the other side of that situation and yes it involved the BW and yes i understand the hypocrisy coming from a feral alley cat like myself who never seemed all that good at saying no when it came to certain things, women or drugs or booze... but particularly women... 

Of course that by no means meant our cad here was going to throw in the towel and so while i said i understood i sat back and thought and proposed a counter argument stating the fact that it was nothing more than two old friends, yes old lovers, sitting down and catching up... she replied that just listening to my message made her uncomfortable, that it was basically dripping in subterfuge, my making up stories in order to see her, the same shit i would do back in the day, though back then it was easy as i was always out of the house and slinging but her point was it was deception and it was not something she could be a part of again... and once again what could i fucking say? she was right...but now we get to the hard truths... and hard truths tend to hurt, they sting, looking into the mirror and realizing and admitting your fuck-ups is not something anyone likes or wants to do but sometimes we have to, sometimes it's the people we love who make us do it and if we're aware enough and intelligent enough we do it... not to say i'm the latter but i try... 

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Back to the Gorian Knot... if one is to solve the dilemma, to figure out the problem one has to sit back and think and even though one might feel that they have thought the issue through the fact is humans are masters at lying to themselves, at devising a way to make themselves feel better about the situation, to place the blame somewhere or on someone else... look around and one can see it every day, on the news, in discussions with friends and family, taking a long hard look at oneself and acknowledging the fuck ups is both difficult and rare and if one is lucky enough or more correctly willing to admit that they are fuck ups, that mistakes have been made, maybe one can come out the other side a better human, having a better understanding of existence... they call them hard truths because they are hard to come by and while most of us will admit we have flaws we like to glance over those flaws as superficial and not admit we are all damaged in some way it's just how we accept and correct it or move past it in order to maintain some semblance of sanity... (of course the modern western remedy for this is therapy, psychoanalysis... and while it may have it's place for some mostly what i've gleaned from those who've tried it is the fact most of it solves fuck all but gives the patient a place to piss and moan... honestly that's what i thought the blogosphere was for... cheeky fuckin' bastard that i am...

Hard Truths. It was during our conversation, shortly after one of the most astounding things ever said to me, that compliment of the highest order, that i had been the first person to not only see her but hear her, that Veronica stated that all those years ago i made the convenient choice and not the difficult one... and on the surface one could say she was correct... but there was more to it than that, yes it looked as if i took the easy way out, kept the status quo and stayed with the BW... and it was here that i realized that i had never actually explained to Veronica the rationale behind my decision, at the time maybe i didn't fully recognize it myself though subconsciously i believe i did... but as i sat around pondering all the things we had discussed those hard truths began to materialize in front of me, for the first time i had a better understanding of my actions and whether i liked the outcome or not i also understood that there was nothing more i could do than accept the results while realizing what i had gained and what i had lost... 

So what was that rationale? What led me to the place i was at and the decision i had made? While not rehashing the full history it was quite obvious the dissolution of my nuclear family had a massive affect on me while thus also sort of pushing me into the world without a safety net... granted many people are born without a net so for some middle class/working class white boy to be whining about this is not something i'm here to do, it's just that was the situation i was in... no home to move to, no place to go, i had to make it on my own and i was determined to do so... problem was i was a weird one, wasn't all that fond of the system i lived in and so i thought, how can i subvert the system? and the easiest way to do so was sling weed... it paid well enough, even the nickel and dime shit and it gave me a lifeline... that first foray into the game in my last year as an undergrad, when in the middle of a divorce i couldn't really ask or expect help from home, i saw that i could feed, clothe, house and have a good time... i just had to keep shit wired tight, understand the game and how to play it... 

Fast forward to moving to the city, slinging again while working at the bagel store, living hand to mouth, the ill fated stint in grad school where after dropping out the second semester while selling shit gear and washing dishes off the books at a coffeehouse kept me eating and drunk and then after a summer working 70-80 hour weeks and saving some money i went back to the Burgh with the express purpose of setting up shop, selling weed and paying off my student loans... i had a plan and i intended to execute that plan... all the while i began to realize i had, for lack of a better term, excellent business acumen... i was fucking good at selling weed, maybe more than good, i was great at it... 

By the time i had met Veronica i had been in the game for five years running (not counting the previous forays) and things had just started to really take off, after toiling away for the first five years i had a small savings and was steadily paying off my student loans but now i had a real connection and i was good enough at my job to cultivate it while accruing a salesforce capable of moving a lot of fucking gear... by the time i arrived back in London my little saving account had doubled and that didn't include the little safe in my room with over 20K sitting in it all neatly sorted by denominations in $1000 bundles... to a kid who started with nothing i was fucking loaded in hoodrat terms... and the serious shit was just getting started... 

Which brings me back to that day in early December in Veronica's apartment, i had just given her the gifts i had bought her and was standing there waiting to be led to the bedroom for our usual afternoon activity... i knew something was off but i pretended it was all good which is when she explained that she couldn't do this anymore, that she felt horrible about it and that it was over... and i understood... but when the world, so to speak, is at your fingertips... when everything seems to be going so fucking well the universe will always bring balance... or so i like to think... and here was the balance, we don't get everything we want, we can't always get what we want, even when it seems we can get whatever we want... i remember standing there that day, the burgeoning King of North Oakland and feeling like shit, for a myriad of reasons... as i stood there numb looking at her beautiful face i heard her say, she must be one helluva woman... i mumbled, yeah... she is, but anyone could tell it was half-hearted, in truth they were both better human beings than me, i was a fucking shitbag, an egomaniac who thought he could do anything... the truth? i could not but the only one at the time who had the guts to tell me was Veronica... 

Years of dwelling on these events in the wee hours, when even the birds and the bugs have stopped their noise, those darkest part of night just before the dawn, the realization of my actions, the ramifications of my actions, the hard truths crystalized in front of me... in the simplest of terms... i sacrificed love in pursuit of money, status and power... that's it... nothing more nothing less... i had made a plan and i was carrying that plan to fruition, the fact was nothing meant more to me than the job, the lifestyle it afforded, the clout (as the kids say), the fact that when i walked in someplace i got respect, motherfuckers got out of my way, they bought me drinks and wanted to be my pal, female attention was not hard to come by, be it dancers or women i knew or those i didn't, bartenders comped me everything, i passed out money like candy on Halloween cuz i could... way back when even the Waitress (now BW) had asked me if the choice was between her and the my chosen occupation of slinging weed which would i choose and i bluntly stated she didn't want me to answer that question, at least not honestly, which is all one needed to know... 

Years before, sitting around the hallowed halls of academia i had set out to write but had taken to heart what my favorite writers had said, one needs to live a little before they can really write, they need to experience fucking life, not in some classroom but in the barroom and back alleys and shit apartments, in the warehouses and kitchens of the world, and so here i was getting my PHD in fucking living, fuck the squares and so off i ran... 

It's probably no surprise that one of my favorite shows is Breaking Bad but maybe not for the reasons one would think... there was an episode as the show was winding down, when Walter White was talking to his now estranged wife where he said something that very few people could relate to about his former occupation... explaining his actions he told Skylar, "i liked it... i was good at it.." and the that's the truth... i loved slinging weed, i was good at it... and i also understand what i sacrificed and why... the fact is like Walter White, as one moves up the ladder, as one accrues more money and power, there is a corruption of the soul... and if one is lucky enough to be able to walk away from that life scot-free it is then that the real challenge begins... not only to decompress from the life but also to understand the true ramifications of one's actions... and speaking to Veronica all these years later brought those actions into even sharper focus, crystallized things even more... 

And so here we were... twenty-five years later and me sending texts to the ether... i realize now it became more complicated due to her proximity, even more complicated when she stated that we wouldn't just be having a cup of coffee... and more convoluted after she had time to think about things and all those old feelings came rushing back... on her last day here, a scant 35-40 minute drive away, we spoke briefly, mainly i just wanted to say goodbye, i didn't try to convince her to let me come up, i just stated quietly that maybe the situation got the better of me but she had to understand how badly i wanted to see her and that i really didn't think she'd be this close... there was a coolness in her voice that hurt, this wasn't a 20yr old girl anymore but a 45yro old woman who had been around the block a few times now as well... i reiterated the fact that she frightened me, that she was the only woman i'd ever met who seriously fucking scared me and that there was a part of me that was afraid to trust myself... but that wasn't necessarily true... 

If there was one thing i'd never told her is that there was part of my brain that felt she knew how to play me... had she ever given me any reason to believe such a thing? absolutely fucking not, everything she had done and said had been the exact opposite, even now, telling me i'd set the bar so high, i understood she had never lied to me or played me for a fool... all she really did was tell me the truth, what she wanted from me was honesty to her and all those involved but i was too much of a bastard, to in love with being a hood to give that to anybody, the world back then was about me and fuck you if you weren't El Kono... one could say i may have learned a few things since then... i also knew had i told her these things she'd have told me i was a fucking idiot, that she loved me and from what she had said quite possibly more than she's loved anyone since... there wasn't much left to say...  

In our last few texts before she went to the airport for a long trip back i told her i'd hope we'd keep in touch, i had told her about the story i'd written about us, the Veronica Chronicles for lack of a title, she said she really wanted to read it and so i told her to give me some time and i'd send it to her... she then sent me something that once again buckled the knees... i had thanked her for all she'd given me, then and now, how i loved her then and still do and how brilliant it was to see and hear all the things she's been up to over the years... her response, "always have and always will but i can't let you muddy my waters again..." then she added, "In one week, you have reminded me of romance, you have made me feel worthy and made me feel despicable. Only you, so far, are capable of the full roller coaster. It will always be special but it needs to be buried, again"...  and once again she's right... 

Some Weeks are Weirder than Others - V.

 What happens when your thoughts become a Gordian Knot? so many things running through the head that's it's almost impossible to untangle them, to make sense of them, how does one sit down and even gather some vague semblance of organization, to somehow communicate all the thoughts and emotions racing around, how does one even begin? the simplest answer... the beginning...

I had spent a good deal of time wandering the vast and endless interwebs looking for a hint of Veronica and yet she was nowhere to be found except for one picture, a picture from a weekly paper for a Cinco de Mayo party dated 2016, seeing her face, knowing in that picture the 20yr old girl was now a 36yr old woman, still as beautiful as the day i first saw her, i would pull it up from time to time and study it, what i was trying to find i don't know, but i'd gaze upon it and wonder where she was an what she was doing... and so one day i started to dig, i knew her name and her birthday and roughly two years ago i had finally tracked down her address and phone number... she was living in Hawaii, same as she was in the photo i dug up... i wrote the number down... and there it sat, tucked safely away, scribbled on that back of a business card, no name attached to it and after a week or so i didn't even need the scrap of paper, the number was etched into my memory... 

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Chasing ghosts... we may dream about it but what happens if we actually have a chance to catch one? even more what happens if there is an opportunity to not only catch one but to wrap your arms around the ghost you've been chasing, the dream you've been having... maybe what happens is reality... and so i did nothing with the number... many a late night in the quiet of the house with the mushrooms kicking through the mind i'd think now was the time, to send a text, to say hello, but i always stopped and thought better of it, don't appear out of nowhere out of your mind on psychedelics... as i much as i love and trust my mushrooms this was something i needed to do with a clear head... and yet i didn't do it... a few times i even typed out the message, always starting with a quote i had stumbled upon and each time i would delete it... i was scared... she has always frightened me in a way that no other woman really has... there was part of me that wondered if she even remembered me which might sound silly but no one had ever really unnerved me like she did... something that i'm sure will come up again...

And so time marches on... the mind marches on... and then sometimes the stars align and some sort of courage (or stupidity) stirs itself up enough to finally send a message... it was the end of September, the same time that 25 years ago we'd have been in London, on what would have been our last night before flying back... and so i sat and typed out a text message, starting with that same quote i had been holding onto and then going into a brief bit about her getting off the plane at Gatwick, about the guts and faith it took to rely on a drunken, drug loving idiot to do something like that, with no money, no place to stay, not knowing a soul in the hope he'd be there... the text mentioned her fearlessness and how i hoped her life has been the adventure she had set out for it to be when she left for Los Angeles... then i hit send... and waited... 

I put the phone down and began to read... or more correctly attempt to read while i waited to see if there would be a response, doing my best to calm the mind, i sat there pretending not to be waiting and waited... it was roughly 7pm my time which meant it would be around 1pm in Hawaii... after twenty minutes or so i heard my phone buzz... i looked and there it was, Hi Kono and a big red heart... i was numb... we began texting and it was soon discovered that she was not currently in Hawaii, she still lived there but at the moment she was right up I-79, about an hour and twenty minutes away, she had flown in for her parents 50th anniversary... i stated i would love to talk to her and she asked if i would be awake later to which i replied, are you fucking kidding me? of course i will and then she stated that once her mother went to bed she would call me... thus began another wait... i was like a kid on X-mas eve, i tried to occupy myself and wandered around the house, the stars had aligned as the BW was still away so i would be able to talk freely and without worry and so i talked with Disaster and told him to make sure he didn't stay up too late... and then i waited... 

At a few minutes before 11pm my phone rang... and there she was, that voice that i remembered so well, i could see her smile and then i heard he say... it's you, it's your voice, you know i've looked for you over the years and could never find you... she could have hung up the phone right then and i'd have been happy, i don't think she knew what those words meant to me and with that we were off on a three hour conversation... i laughed at that point and said i was legit hoping you didn't forget me... and she replied, are you serious! how could i forget you? as i'm apt to say you couldn't have punched the smile off my face... so where to begin? 

After she left our little city she had moved to Los Angeles for a few years before then picking up and moving to San Francisco, she then explained that one drunken evening she jumped in the water in SF and it was freezing, she then turned to her friends and asked where was the ocean warm? someone said Hawaii and later that night in a drunken haze she had booked a one way ticket to Hawaii... what some might call fucking insane i call fearless and so roughly 16 years ago she packed her things and ended up on the islands... why was i not surprised? it was somewhat the same way she went from LA to SF, a whim, an idea, and why the fuck not? there was nothing tying her down and i wanted to tell her how much i loved this, how she set out to have an adventure and it never stopped, she then admitted it might be time to move back to the mainland and mentioned a couple of places and i'd be lying if i didn't think about how i might get to those cities if she ever landed there... then she asked about me... 

And what was i supposed to say? she asked if i was happy? i stated yes and no, that the Buddhist in me understands that happiness is relative and balanced by it's opposite, she asked me about my boyos and then stunned me when she asked if i was still with the BW? was she the mother? and not only that but said her name... i admitted she was and that what i experienced at home was hardly what you could call a healthy relationship in fact it was nothing more than a business relationship at this point, that i'm not sure when or how it ends but that at this point my focus was the boyos and my cats, the latter of which she got a good laugh out of... there was a lot of catching up about our friends, the people we had both known when she was in the city and of course there were some haymakers thrown in... 

I asked her if she had ever been close to getting married or something like it and what she said floored me... she stated that i had set the bar really high and that though there were one or two who came close, one in particular whose family seemed to be the reason for it not working out, but that no, not really... she said that when she was with me, for the first time in her life she felt seen and not only seen but heard and that after experiencing that she wouldn't settle for anything less... she went on to say no one ever really managed both other than me, that seen yes but rarely if ever heard... i was stunned... did i really do that? i told her all i did was show her what she already knew, what she already possessed... and i'll admit it's fucking astounding to think i could have had that impact on her though i understood it because she captivated me is such a way that i was always listening to what she had to say, yes she was young but that didn't make her any less intelligent than anyone else, she had an old soul and i somehow knew that when i met her, when we'd be alone and talking she had an innate wisdom and sometimes i think it was that wisdom that frightened me so much... that sooner or later she would tire of me and that thought fucking scared me to death... i've been involved with my fair share of women (how is anyone's guess) but she, to this day, is the only one who has ever unnerved me that much... scrambled my thinking, and the reality of it was that i probably got it all fucking wrong... but that's life ain't it?  

At this point i asked if she would be anywhere near the city? or if i could possibly come up to see her? fact was i didn't expect her to be here i thought she'd be in Hawaii, maybe what one might call a safe distance but the fact she was close enough to see was now paramount in my mind, just to wrap my arms around her one time, that's it, no ulterior motives other than to lay my eyes on her in person and hug her... and once again she floored me... when i asked she laughed and said and hour and a half is a long drive for a cup of coffee, to which i replied cheekily that when you love coffee like i do it's not a question of how far but the reward at the end... and then she said it... and once again i was stunned... we wouldn't be having a cup of coffee together.. we wouldn't? i asked... no, she said, we'd end up in bed... the truth is i hadn't even thought about that, that my whole point was just to see how she was but hearing her say it buckled my knees... i laughed and said why do you think that? and stated that was never my intention... she responded, it may not be your intention but it would definitely be mine, i don't think i could see you and not... then she paused and said, i have to think about seeing you cuz you cloud my judgement and the things i want to do are the things i know i shouldn't do... 

It turned into a beautiful and brilliant three hours and as 2am rolled around, last call so to speak, she stated that she was exhausted and needed to get to bed, i understood and told her i don't think she knew how happy this whole conversation had made me, how happy i was for her to be living the life she had been and that i'd really like to speak more before she left and for her to think about arranging a time to meet up... i even promised i'd keep my clothes on and once again she sexily said that she couldn't promise the same... and so we reluctantly said our goodbyes, she had a ton of things to do for her parents anniversary party and needed to get to bed... i stated quite simply that i loved her, as insane as that sounds, said goodnight and we hung up... my head was swimming... (to be cont.)

That quote:  One day , whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. However the saddest most awful truth you will ever come to find, is that they are not always with whom we spend our lives.   - Beau Taplin

Some Weeks are Weirder than Others Pt. 1

 Living is an art and i'll freely admit most people are complete shit at it... granted i can't say i haven't lead a bit of a charmed life, i mean i went to college and got a degree i've never used then became a criminal and worked my way up to the point where i didn't need a "legit" job and had more money than i knew what to do with... walked away from that and into a supposed "real job" which had me working at most maybe four hours a day? while the rest of the time i spent reading books, sleeping and handicapping horses (as well as intermittent bouts of drinking and drugging while on the clock) and once i was laid off from that job i became a stay at home dad now part time gig economy serf... as Pops used to say to me, boy you somehow fall out of bed and land on your feet... Pops always had a way... which brings me back to that living thing... 

It's been well documented and i freely admit my favorite band ever is The Smiths, yes there are a few close seconds (see Joy Division fronted by the I-mac's namesake) but if pressed for a favorite it's no question at all, The Smiths... so when when i saw good old Morrissey was coming to town, though i vowed not to give him any more money, the fanboy in me could not resist and so i bought a ticket (with insurance in case he cancelled) and said to myself why the fuck not? enjoy this fucking mortal coil as it will all be over sooner than you think... 

The day of the show i was single parenting so to speak as the BW was out of town for the weekend with her brother and ailing father... call me a fucking cad but the fact was it was a well earned break for our hero here, but there were things to get sorted, making sure Disaster had what he needed and what not but at his age it's not like i worry about leaving him home alone, the boy is a wise one... needless to say i was working out how to get down to the swanky theater that Moz was playing, the very same place Bob Marley played his last show, which is ironic considering Morrissey's old utterance of "reggae is vile", something the rest of The Smiths wholeheartedly disagreed with and as we know Mozza loves to utter controversial shit just for the hell of it... so while i debated transport, checking train schedules and the like it dawned on me it might be best to actually drive down but since i didn't want to pay the exorbitant amounts of cash on parking, preferring to save it for a few fine Mexican beers, i sat scratching my head and  thinking and then remembered the bus station was a few blocks walk and since it was another gorgeous stretch of weather i checked it out... it would cost me exactly .50 cents more to park at the bus garage than take the train, problem solved...

Why do i mention the bus garage? well like any city bus station there are always interesting characters about and this night was no different... having eaten a bit of edibles and carrying my trusty weed pen, i made my way to the show, singing songs and drinking my water (hydration is key you know), parked and was being the typical stoner and making sure i had everything i needed i noticed a person two cars over, a car that looked quite possibly that said person might have lived out of the vehicle... i looked over smiled to see a large trans person getting out of their car as well... being a tall white male in Dumbfuckistan i understand the trepidation any who doesn't look like me has when they see someone like me and i've learned that the best way to let them know i'm cool is to smile, a genuine friendly smile.. and so i did  smile and said hello, then made my way towards the stairs... 

It was at this point the person behind me asked, do you know where the stairs are? and i said yes i do, follow me... we then struck up a conversation, we discussed our plans with my new friend telling me they were going to a certain club, a prominent gay club in the city and i could tell it was their first time, there was a nervous excitement and they discussed how it should be an interesting evening and i laughed and said isn't that why we leave the house? it was nice to put my new friend at ease and as we hit the bottom of the stairs and the street corner i explained which direction they needed to go and they invited me to stop by the club later, i smiled politely and said that was a lovely offer but that afterwards i needed to get home and check on my son... i then said that i hope they have an great night and enjoy the club, my new friend was beaming as we said goodbye... kindness... we need more of it... 

If the show wasn't sold out it was damn near, i didn't see a spare seat and of course i bought one on the aisle for my fucking long legs... Mozza playing the swanky places means i get a seat... once inside i made my way to the booze queue where i struck up a conversation with a swell guy from Northern Ireland who had actually caught The Smiths way back at the Hacienda before it was the Hacienda... i think i experienced something called gig envy or some such emotion but he was a swell chap and we had a good craic as we waited for our booze... 

There was no opening band per se but a film of what could only be described as Morrissey's influences, of course being a dolt i missed the first 15 or so minutes of it much to my regret as once i took my seat it was fucking brilliant... old clips of the New York Dolls, Bowie, the kitchen sink films of Steven's youth, some old punk bands, snippets of various writers speaking, it was roughly 40 minutes and at the end there was a picture of James Baldwin flashing on the screen and it's a well documented fact how much i love Jimmy... and then out strolled the band and the man... 

I had jokingly posted on a social media site that the over/under on the number of times El Kono would cry during this show was 3.5 and damn if i don't have a potential career as an oddsmaker in my future... the official count was four but it might have been more like six or maybe it was just one as i was misty-eyed through the whole fucking thing... having cheated and checked the setlist i was hoping it wouldn't change and it didn't, in fact if one would have asked me to write a setlist 16 of the 19 songs played would have been on it... for a fanboy like me it was practically overwhelming... 

To lead off with There's a Light that Never Goes Out... seriously? the song most would think would be the encore... it took almost ten seconds before my eyes were welling with tears and i just sat transfixed at the song that a 16yr old El Kono would listen to on cassette while lying in bed and staring at the ceiling dreaming of meeting some young lady who loved this band as much as he did... through the course of the night he played some of my most favorite tracks, I Know it's Over, the second time i've seen this live also had me wiping at my eyes... Half a Person, are you fucking serious? to steal a line, i just might die with a smile on my face after all... Shoplifters of the World Unite, I Won't Share You... i was floored... not to mention the solo stuff, There's a Light was followed by Suedehead... an excellent Life is a Pigsty (also the second time i caught that live) Jack the Ripper, First of the Gang to Die, The Loop, Let Me Kiss You... fucking hell... i was on the end of a row filled with 40-50 something women who i have a suspicion got a good giggle out of the tall man in the end seat basically overcome with emotion for most of the set, the woman next to me smiling, hugging me and asking if i was alright to which we both had a laugh... what a top fucking night... how good? i actually wanted a fucking cigarette when i walked out... when live music is better than sex... that's a fucking good night out... 

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Fast Forward... Saturday morning i checked the telly schedule and as usual the shitbags at NBC were showing one of the less attractive fixtures that morning meaning Palace v. Liverpool would be shown on the Peacock pay service... when NBC first acquired the rights they made a big hullabaloo (not often one gets to use that word) of stating they'd never charge to see matches, which we all knew was bullshit and after a couple of years they began charging for matches... it was around this time that matches the neutrals would be most interested in, the ones between big clubs, were suddenly never shown on the "free cable" networks which at the time worked out great for me cuz it meant Palace was on more... so seeing how the game wouldn't be on i went out in the morning to do some gig economy serfing only to discover the game was on satellite radio! so i did my couple of batches to pay for weed and vinyl and listened as the Palace held a one-nil lead late into the second half... including a shot off the post that would have made it 2-nil and me knowing the game like i do thinking that would come back to bite us on the arse... and it did when the Scousers equalized... by this time i was back at home listening and hoping that the coverage would switch to this game when the one being shown ended and low and behold it did... 

The coverage began with 8 or so minutes plus stoppage time to go... i've supported Palace since 1997 when i made a pledge to my brother Gulfboot Johnson to support his football club... little did i know the serendipity the universe was tossing into my lap as being a kid from Cleveland, the veritable home of hapless sports franchises, i would come to support one that fit nicely into that very category... a little over a decade later i'd be staring down the at the reality my club, which i had come to love like it was my own child, would be dissolved due to financial problems, so bad that we couldn't play our star player less he get hurt and the Rent Boys not shell out six million quid for him... which they did shortly thereafter... 

Granted being a Palace fan is never easy, to steal now from a new film, it's one battle after another with now the goal being to stay in the Premier League... and after clawing our way up in 2013 we've managed to have the best run in club history staying in the top flight instead of being one of the yo-yo clubs bouncing up and down.. of course back in 2010 and after a ten point deduction we squeaked by relegation into League One... and of course we did it in dramatic fashion on the last day of the season... for the past decade and change i've celebrated every time we become mathematically safe.. what other sport can one celebrate finishing twelfth? as Cantona once said, i love football... 

But things are different now though always tenuously balanced... we've lost super players (Olise, Eze, Zaha and very soon most likely Guehi) and the fact we're doing so well, a European best 19 unbeaten until the blue Scousers got a bit of luck, that now every player seems to have interest in them from one of those vulture capitalist "big" clubs, not to mention the shitbags of Man United eyeing up our gaffer when they eventually sack theirs... 

There was a time when giving up a late goal we would sit back and hold on for dear life, cling to the point as they say and that would be a good result... not under Super Ollie Glasner, no fucking way! we kept playing and working and with stoppage time winding down a long throw into the box by Lerma, a couple of headers and before you knew it the ball had found Eddie Nketiah, a man so in need of a goal it was criminal... and Eddie took a lovely first touch and then volleyed it past Allison... game over, three points, my whole neighborhood probably thought i'd won the lottery as i let loose with howls of celebratory shouting... in just 36 hours it had been a fucking helluva a weekend...

And then came Sunday night... in a week of weirdness the weirdest was yet to come... and though that's not exactly the right word maybe it was most apt for the head space that ensued... it could be summed up in one word, one name actually... Veronica. (to be cont.) 

Hauntological Musings of a Gig Economy Serf

 Now and then, when the pay is enough to entice me to drive, this gig economy serf sometimes ends up back in his old hood, the place where the North Oakland Player toiled away at his craft until as luck would have it he became the King of North Oakland... for the uninitiated his name is El Kono, the anti-hero of many of the stories laid out here in the lounge.. and recently much to my own surprise due to my not paying close enough attention to the map in the app i found myself on those very streets that i spent years roaming and running and hustling... 

Damn near twenty years ago, by cosmic accident, i was sitting in a bar a Lawrenceville when i lucked into a chance meeting with a brooding young man who would become one of the best friends i've ever had, even luckier for me is his curious mind which often introduces me to new things, be it music or art or philosophy or sandwiches.... oddly enough on this occasion he re-introduced me to an old acquaintance of mine via a new discovery (for me not him)... the new discovery was Mark Fisher while the old acquaintance was Jacques Derrida, the concept they shared was Hauntology... thus began my education in the hauntological world, which is still quite new to me and how it has altered the way i look at things sometimes... more coincidence was the fact that in my ill-fated stint in graduate studies in English at Podunk University all the rage in the department, particularly among Dr. Rockstar and his tribe, were the hot French philosophers of the day, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, and even now somewhere Robert Anton Wilson is giggling at the coincidence? but then again it was Mr. Fisher who sorta tied it all together with his take on Hauntology and how it related to a certain genres of music... which of in turn leads to my take on it as a delivery boy in my old neighborhood.... 

The short definition of Hauntology... it explores the lingering presence of the past and how it shapes our future... which is interesting for those Zen like minds who understand there is only the present but at the same time realize the past informs the present informs the future in and endless cycle that seemingly morphs and changes which each passing moment... which leads us back to the my late morning drive into my old neighborhood, the original hood, the days of the White Trach Pleasuredome and the 759... what one could call the halcyon days of El Kono before he moved out to the vast wasteland known as suburban Dumbfuckistan... to steal more from the definition, the personal history and culture of those days still exert a bit of influence on myself today while reminding me, dare i say haunting, of what was and what could have been... and of course there is one thing, well person, who looms largest of all in this context... 

I'd spend the next couple hours in my old hood working and in that time i'd drive streets where i could practically see the ghosts of what was, the streets and buildings all still there but so much had changed... and the absence of what was loomed large over the thoughts that raced through my mind... but first and foremost was what happened on my way to drop off one of my deliveries... it was one of those moments where i literally caught my breath... sitting at the light and looking up i realized where i was, for a moment i felt lost, not in the physical sense but in a psychological sense, as if lost in a time warp... and where exactly did i find myself? in what at one time may have been the title of this post... The Street of Big Dreams and Broken Love... 

The intersection of S. Aiken Ave. and  Baum Blvd.... at one time one could say i owned these streets but this street in particular, fuckin hell, it was like an indescribable wave of something, melancholia? a warped longing? a distorted happiness? honestly i don't really know what it was, maybe it was a haunting in the most real sense of the word... down S. Aiken about eight or ten apartment buildings on the right was a red brick building, the swing still on the front porch, and in that building on the third floor was Veronica's old apartment... and it was sitting at that light that i said out loud to myself, the street of big dreams and broken love... one might ask why not big love and broken dreams? but it just made more sense the other way around... but there i was, on a street that i'd driven thousands of times before, a street where i used to get butterflies in my stomach knowing i was about to see her... the nights spent there, the secret afternoon visits, the early chill and morning darkness of the time i stopped on my way to work as she sat on the porch swing smoking a cigarette, party raging in her place, the sadness in her eyes as we stood and talked and how she wished i would come upstairs, tell everyone to leave and climb into bed with her, mainly because as she said she just wanted to wake up next to me... sitting at that light the faded film of a past life, a haunting, was taking place in real time... and then the light turned green and i had to continue on my way... 

And that was just the beginning of this haunting, these distorted memories in black and white... driving around these streets was like remembering a forgotten history lesson, remembering the dates and times and places, the people gone both physically and psychologically... at times it was bordering on not sensory overload but memory overload, the physical structures still there but the ones from my history gone, ghosts to progress and gentrification, ghosts moved on to bigger cities and so-called better places, some of the people ghosts in the sense that they are not only psychologically gone but physically non-existent as well.... and maybe one of those ghosts is me, the man named El Kono is no more, the king of these streets, the guy who sold more weed than Jesus tossed out fish and bread, who was the patron saint of strippers and bartenders everywhere, hood rich and hood famous, was gone, nothing more than a ghost in his own mind, a fiction typed out so that the history isn't lost... and those ghosts... 

American Pager, where i got my first beeper before the advent of cheap cell phones, was now a Wing Stop... the Olympic Flame, my weekend breakfast joint, now a BMW dealership, the old party store warehouse where i worked "redeveloped" as retail space... Joe's Bar, the place i used to get blind drunk and the place of Pizza Man legend (where i scored pounds of weed from Pizza Joe and would walk home with them in pizza boxes) a Chipotle... damn near everything i loved was gone... 

On my first stint in this hood, in the apartment known as the White Trash Pleasurdome, another third floor walk up with a shitty balcony and a hole in the ceiling that during the winter when it snowed it would actually snow into the apartment (,the good Doctor and i pulled the drawer from the fridge to catch the snow), the place where i first started selling weed in the Burgh, the place i so lovingly referred to as the North Oakland Hub, the buildings still standing, the streets that made me so foreign and yet so familiar... of the the four bars that made up the Hub all of them are gone, every fucking one turned into a cell phone store or a vape shop or empty... this corner was an alcoholics and hoods dream, the bars opened early and closed late, it was a hive of activity and along with it was a laundromat, a grocery store, a pharmacy, a liquor store... all vanished into the ether, the grocery store has been empty for years, same with the pharmacy, the liquor store is gone, the little breakfast joint a memory... 

None of the bars seemingly survived the pandemic, a virus that killed more than just people it killed neighborhoods, it killed history... Chief's, a legend among Pittsburgh boozers, a punk-tinged jukebox, a haven for the cool kid junkies in leather jackets... i once met a local rock star from a band that was a straight up Jane's Addiction rip-off, right down to the name and stage show, who thought it was shocking to greet everyone with "hail Satan", i remember actually laughing at him when he was introduced to me spewing his nonsense... Thirtsy's, the long running hippie bar with weekly bands and Dead night, now an Asian fusion restaurant... The Luna, named after the little amusement park (Luna Park) that used to occupy this neighborhood way back when, the place where a shithead bouncer and i almost got into a fight cuz my friend had left a funny note one night when he made us stop playing darts so a couple of his "ladies" could dance, only to have the bartenders come out from behind the bar and tell him he was about to get canned if he gave me any more shit cuz i was already a well known hood to which i replied, i like you guys but fuck this place while Mr. T works the door (said bouncer had a Mr. T thing going and would be found a year or so later dead of a heroin overdose)... and of course last but not least, my beloved Mitchell's Tavern... 

Mitchell's should really have it's own post as it's lingering past has forever shaped my future, my present, my life in general... there were days i lived in this bar, from the original forays in 1993/94 where the 25 cent beer night kept me pleasantly drunk to the day in October 1995 and the cosmic accident of being introduced to Hippie Jack, this bar was an integral part of my personal history... drinking Dewar's and water with a beer chaser, throwing darts in the back, making deals in the red vinyl booths (i was incensed the day i walked in to see they had been removed) there easily could have been no Kono if not for this place... the characters i encountered in this place could fill a book, legends of the North Oakland hub now apparitions in my mind... now it's a coffee house, gazing on it in it's current iteration is Mr. Fisher's very definition of "ghosts of future pasts", the ghosts of my life indeed, there is part of me that wants, actually needs to walk in the place, to buy a cup of coffee and look around, not to see but to feel those ghosts again... in some way a beautiful haunting of the present by walking through a past that no longer exists... 

And maybe, more accurately, the whole neighborhood, neighborhoods to be more correct, should be called the place of Big Dreams and Broken Love... or maybe it should be reversed and be it should be the neighborhood of Big Love and Broken Dreams... for it was not only Veronica that i loved but the streets themselves, the aura, the dirt and the grit and the life that i was living, the pure beauty of the vision that a young man once had, i mean the folly of it was almost too comical to comprehend to the sane and the square... grad school dropout living without a net hatches plan to pay off student loans and feed, clothe and house himself by the selling of an illegal substance (at the time) or substances, in a time where they were putting more people in prison for the possession of that plant with our anti-hero graduating to a place where had he been busted he would probably only recently would just been getting paroled... yeah sometimes, as i sit here in the lily white burbs i get a cold shiver, the ghost of that kid i knew, flannel clad in cargo pants, pockets bursting with gear, smiling and cocky, popular with the ladies and bartenders, his ghost still haunts the old neighborhood himself... now and then i'll catch glimpses of that ghost in the reflection of storefront windows, it's not him but it's him... and yeah, i'm not a believer in ghosts... but i see them from time to time... and yes there is that one... and she still haunts me to this day...