(Actual) Portrait of the Derelict as a Young Man Vol. 42

I've been meaning to start this post for the last few days but since i've been subsisting off of pills and weed and booze and milkshakes due to this little tooth problem i have i've been putting it off, hell you'd put it off too if you were all warm and fuzzy and staring at the world through foggy eyes... and then of course tonight i kept trying to start it but a certain Nick Disaster kept crying for his daddy and seeing as his daddy is the biggest fucking pushover in the world when it comes to him and his brother it took me awhile to get around to it... you see this is the eve of birthday number 42 and since "blogz is dead" and no one reads them anymore anyway i decided to that after five years what the fuck...

Of course the pay-off comes at the end you know, if you could call it a payoff, but that boy in the photo down there, i'm trying to remember how old he was, i'm guessing he's almost 23 and that it was the halcyon days of the whorehouse summer that has been written about in many a Wilderness Year post, the summer when our hero showed up to the beach with 2oz of grass, a full vial of hash oil, half an ounce of mushrooms and 10 hits of acid, of course that was just for starters, all carefully padlocked in a drawer and used to barter his way to free food and clothes and whatever else he needed at the time, one of his more wise decisions of the summer and of course it didn't hurt that many of the young ladies he hung out with liked alot of the same sort of recreational things he did, as well as a few other activities that involved alot of panting and sweating and thrusting and licking, aerobics basically, sometimes surfing and of course later on that summer we had the Angel Dust phase, went through over half a dozen jobs and all without a net, no home to return to, no place to live when his lease was up...

But these were great days we was living, i believe this fine photo was taken by the Hassler in one or both our more lucid moments, hell for all i know i was close to sober in that picture but i 'm guessing i was more than likely stoned and had a bottle of malt liquor somewhere nearby, see this was pre-dreadlock days, as you can tell they'd soon be arriving, it was also a time in my life when i thought of deodorant as an extravagance and didn't wear any, needless to say i amazed my flat mates with the number and quality of the female i attracted, of course the Golden Boy said the whole lowlife poet aura i had cultivated helped, see at one time like Mr. Shankly i wrote truly, awful poetry but it did get my laid on a few occasions so even if it was truly awful it did serve it's purpose...

But the point the point, is there one? i don't know, i do know that back in those days i used to go to a Christian mission called the Son's Spot way down past N. Division St., it was here that one of the fine born-agains, a nice lady really except for all the Jeebus mumbo-jumbo, told me i looked a bit like John the Baptist, of course i pointed out that i believe he ended up with his head on a platter but she just smiled and blessed me and asked if i needed more spaghetti, see every Thursday night down at the spot they served dinner and for those of us down and out or spending most of our income on booze and drugs it was nice to get a home cooked meal, usually it was pasta and sauce (with meat or without), salad, a vegetable, rolls, iced tea and ice cream or Popsicles for desert, the born-agains would talk religion but not force it on you and once they got to know you they wouldn't do that if they knew it was pissing in the wind, of course later in the eve they would break out the guitars and sing all those songs i learned in CCD but by that time i was usually back at work or at the bar or tripping...

My favorite time of day at the Son's Spot though was from 6-8am, see then you could get breakfast, damn near every day of the week, free just like dinner and the crowd was much smaller cuz most of the inhabitants of Ocean City weren't up at that time or they were to fucked up to get up and make it all the way downtown but for those of us coming down after another long night of drinking and acid it was like the siren's call, we'd ride down on our bicycles or walk the beach or wander the alleys, i always showed up pie-eyed and smiling, don't think i ever went when i wasn't tripping and each day i'd get a cheese omelet and bacon, some toast, a glass or three of orange juice, maybe some chocolate milk, i'd sit and listen to the people, watch some of the truly destitute of this tourist town knowing i wasn't far from joining them, the born-agains would talk and smile and tell me that Jeebus loved me and i'd smile back and say "cuz this i know" and it was always a fine time, the one woman would always make me a peanut butter sandwich to take with me, she's the one who called me John the Baptist, she used to say that i had a good soul and that someday i'd come home to the Lord, i'd say how do you know that? and she'd say your eyes John your eyes, i'd smile and thank her and head for the street not wanting to tell her she had a better chance of hitting the lottery than me coming home, kindness is kindness and one does not denigrate it... they fed me and did not judge and for that i was thankful...

And now many moons have passed and i haven't seen that shore in years, i often wonder if the mission is still there and if it still serves dinner to the masses, and now i have that picture, a boy from a long time ago who i still see glimpses of when i look into the mirror, he's alot different than he used to be but in certain ways he hasn't changed at all.... many people would have wagered he wouldn't see 42, let alone be here with his boyos and for all intents and purposes, happy... but i'm still here and still doing what i 've always set out to do, guess there's something to be said for that now isn't there?