Manifest

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Rumrazor

She sat in shadows.
We talked about violins.
The night was heavy and sweet
and tasted of blancmange.
I needed her touch and so I touched.
Then her bracelet fell off in the japonicas
and, when I searched in the dark,
a bee stung.

Her cocker spaniel shed hair everywhere.
And she fed a solid white Siberian who also stayed.
She was manifest in my life from our first touch.
She was manifest, her clock on the wall, her clothes.

She grew to know why I hobbled up the porch stairs,
why I slept away the middle of the day.
She knew why a gypsy guitar would keep me from sleep,
why I would get drunk on scuppernong wine
and sing Spanish songs badly,
sing those Spanish songs sadly,
then take a piss outside beneath the heavenly tree.

And sometimes I would turn on all the lights bright,
blast the stereo loud, the television set,
and the dog would run, the dog would bark,
the cat would jump and disappear,
and I would grab her ass and I would dance,
I could hear her heart beat wildly against mine,
her eyes were so wide and
wider when I told her everything.
We would end up in the shower fully clothed
with her wiping the water away from my face.

Then Spring, against a wall colored violet wisteria,
on a bench eating black olive sandwiches,
cream cheese slathered liberally with orange marmalade.
I saw her clearly in the sun and I was ashamed.
Most of my venom was gone.
I was ashamed for I no longer needed her touch.

Impossible tasks are always left undone,
even with the best of intentions
the insurmountable will not be overcome,
try, try as you might, in some situations
some manifestations become insuperable
and hope is abandoned to hopeless abandon
in the wake of a tragic and broken down trust.

When a stuffed mattress is plundered of all softness,
hollowed out of the plush in order to sleep swaddled
in warmth, swathed in safety and creature comforts,
eventually the morning will come when, in spite
of a manufactured domestic docility, all that remains
is the scattered destruction of this bed you sleep upon
and the unraveling stitch of the chintz pillows.

Oh Ashley, ash ash, lets not rehash the memory.
When you asked me why, I was more than honorable.
I told you true, we are made to love whom we love
but only sometimes are we ever truly loved.

Now relish your surname née your previous last name,
the one which brought you happiness not long after I left.
Know that in this regard you have most definitely grown,
you were manifest from your very first touch.
You were manifest,
your colors,
the smell of your clothes,
the remnants of your love.

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Tyrants

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Rumrazor

My vision gets blurry. I find and wear my bifocals. My vision remains blurry. I clean the lenses with alcohol wipes. Everything I see blurs.

I am surrounded by teenagers. They walk past without a glance. Some skateboard and stop suddenly at the corner, flip their skateboard up into their hands. They somehow do this with their shoes. They giggle while hanging out in front of Taco Bell, they bite into their tacos and let the hot sauce drip down on to the sidewalk.

I have a niece. She scowls. She looks at her phone more than she ever looks at me. I imagine myself giving her advice. I want to tell her, people my age, we resent youth, are angered by the young. All the things we could have done if only we had known. Start jogging now, don’t wait, those five extra pounds you think will go away fast if you take the stairs instead of the elevator will double up quick before you notice them again. And the kids take so many pictures, so photogenic, any angle is flattering. Well, those pictures will haunt later, they will drag down each soul and capture the reasons why grandparents and uncles smile tight-lipped while nieces flash their wide teeth, why the old feel nauseous and will need to sit down. We ask to fetch us water but really want to scream, do things, do the things now to become rich and have all the things which can’t be asked for, most of the things we want out of this life. I tend to slightly move before the camera clicks and I blur unrecognizably.

The kids are as tyrannical as the rich. The rich with their brand new molars and exercise machines beaming in their solars, their bites are so strong but the kids are less paranoid.

I saw a tyrant eating yogurt at Menchies today and I thought to myself, from my cold dead fingers. Then I saw another tyrant driving a Saab on the 101 and I whispered towards her, 2nd Amendment, 2nd Amendment. Then I saw a group of tyrants playing soccer over at Amelia Earhart park and I just shook my head at them, oh you silly little tyrants, oh no you don’t! And then the tyrant at the bank had a sesame seed stuck to his upper tooth, his blinding tooth so shiny and perfect, had a spot of black, residue from a muffin or a bagel, and I focused on that and I laughed.

My weekly medication organizer tray announces in bold lettering for me to enjoy life one day at a time. Each day of the week is segmented into quadrants. In the morning I take an oval grainy pill along with a round pink pill, at noon, a small white pill with another that has a groove through the middle, in the evening, a chalky white pill and a round light blue one. Bedtime is for the horse pill, or at least used to be, when the easier to swallow, smaller capsule was prescribed, I got them confused for a week, so I took twice the dosage. The next few mornings my feces was yellowish and bland with white fatty lumps for texture, the only consequence being that I stared at my excrement longer and lonelier than usual. The bathroom buzzed and the toilet water was cold and the heat lamp overhead warmed my neck and my ears. And I felt keenly my helplessness until I figured things out and everything returned to this current semblance of normal expediency.

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Treachery

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Rumrazor

The morning rays to an insomniac’s eyes,
the way shot glasses seem so small,
how bankers, landlords, insurance companies
scheme to obtain all tax refunds,
the bi-weekly pay period, hard
on the 15th and the 30th of the month,
days are stolen, time, the clock has been stolen.
Figure this out: The fluctuating price of gas,
the surcharge when using a credit card,
how the television ads proclaim less is better,
thin crust pizza, so much better, bite size candy.
12 ounce soda bottles fit better in your refrigerator
and mini burgers, finger chicken sandwiches,
so much better for your waistline,
don’t forget to pay the same or more for the pleasure.

The singer finally admitted to me her treachery.
She told me the lead guitarist had promised her a record deal.
I listened to her confessions over a few phone calls,
over a few weeks, and then she asked how to make amends.
I was callous, I asked her, “What is this, step fourteen?”
She cried. The guitar player left her for a saucy nurse,
then accused her of popping pills, drinking and popping pills.
Karma was a little fix alone in a bedroom drunk and popping pills.
Her wedding gown ripped at the seams and no longer fits.

And I have to choose to forgive the traducement
which induced in me insanity, truculent insanity, and poetry.
I have to forget the sleepless nights, the constant question of why,
the long knives, I have to forget the days of shoat, horns of a goat,
the cotilion dance of a dog repeatedly returning to his own vomit.
I am Buridan’s ass, I couldn’t decide between the stack of hay
or the pail of water, so I decided to die, the long knives,
the days of shoat, after every bath, after every shave,
I wallowed in the mire.

A parolee once told me that the best day in prison was Tuesday.
On Tuesdays they serve tacos on taco night behind the razor wire.

The morning rays to an insomniac’s eyes,
the way shot glasses seem so small,
overages on cell phone plans,
unused frequent flyer miles,
the feeling I felt when I decided to return her calls,
to tell her that maybe we should talk in person,
that perhaps I felt I ready to talk face to face,
you know, the feeling I felt when I heard that message,
the number I dialed had been changed, disconnected,
and no longer in service, yes, that feeling I felt.

“Your fatty liver,” the doctor said, “is not the problem,”
and patted my round belly like the consolation of a pet.
“The problem is the pancreas. They are sprung out
of insulin. Think of a sponge squeezed out of all water
and now dry.” The doctor made the twisting motion twice,
for emphasis. “After all the eating and the drinking,
all the sugar in your body continually stimulating them,
the pancreas finally gave out. Your body is too big….”

I thought he said pig, I thought he said my body is a pig,
but the doctor just droned on about units of insulin
and syringes and having a set time for the applications
and I looked around the examination room and wondered
at the extra expense, whether my insurance would cover.
I saw a poster of all the tendons of a hand, red and blue.
I saw the cross section of a phalanx and the metatarsals.
I saw a framed picture of wild flowers, red and blue.
I thought the flowers could fit neatly in the palm of the hand,
the flexors could grip the flowers in the palm of the hand,
and then I thought of all the wild ivy outside on the walls,
how I drive by every day past the wild ivy on the walls,
and then I thought about how death doth come for us all.

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I Am Dancing With Her Only With My Eyes

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Rumrazor

New Year’s 2013 is on the clock and so my friend Darren is all like you can’t go home and be by yourself on New Year’s, you can’t ring in the new year by yourself, and so I walk into Pat’s Cocktails and I see Brett and his beautiful girlfriend who has a twin so I greet Brett and his beautiful girlfriend and her twin and I always look back and forth between the twins because they are identical, I have a brief fantasy of watching them play ping pong wearing only bikini thongs, and then I also see Jerry who is bummed out that the coach for the Buffalo Bills got fired today. I see Vivian who also has a twin and I hug them both and I say hello. I ponder for a second the significance of greeting two pair of female twins in a row. I see Reese outside all bundled up because he still can’t come inside from being 86’d. Russell walks in after me and I am always glad to see Russell and I am thinking I am so glad that Darren talked me into coming into Pat’s Cocktails, I am so happy I am here saying hello to all these wonderful people and ringing in the new year. I sit next to Sergio at the bar, Sergio still doesn’t have a Facebook but I always ask him do you have a Facebook yet? We are talking about football and all the coaches who got fired today and we are cracking jokes about the tragedy that befell the football world on black Monday, New Year’s Day 2013. I am only drinking diet Pepsi. A ton of motorcycle cops are cruising up and down Riverside Drive. I tell Leslie the barmaid I am not drinking tonight no way no how and she’s like ok.

When this girl I met earlier sidles up to me and orders her drink but then turns and starts dancing next to me. She is doing this really close to me like she expects me to dance with her, I guess while sitting on my bar stool, because she is so close to me that I am actually blocked in by her dancing and I can’t even stand up.

Sergio had told me earlier that some girls celebrating at the bar were porn actresses and I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not and then he said something kinda funny, he said but that one, pointing at the slut version of Taylor Swift, only does double xx instead of triple xxx. Me: “I don’t know what that means.” And I really did not know what he meant.

So then what I surmise is the boyfriend of the dancing girl came over all agro but I thought he was fake agro and joking around because when I met him earlier he seemed cool. He is all puffed up like a bar peacock all puffed up which only made me think he was kidding all the more and he is like hey dude, are you trying to dance with my girl? Me: “I am only dancing with her with my eyes.” I thought that was very clever and I smiled like see? I’m in on the joke. But he was mad and he said you’re a real smart ass lard ass. He actually rhymed the insult. And I was like what? Oh you’re serious but I was impressed by the rhyme. And then he grabbed her by the arm while she was still dancing and jerked her away and she gave a war hoot like an owl, like a native warrior, but she was smiling and laughing. She raised her other arm above her head and hooted. And then Leslie the barmaid slammed the dancing girl’s drink down at the bar like a denouement, like an exclamation point, and I laughed and I laughed bitter and when I turned to see if Sergio was laughing with me, Sergio had actually been talking to a different porno girl sitting on the other side of him and missed the whole thing.

About 17 minutes later, the New Year lit up! People drank free champagne but not me. People blew noisemakers with streamers attached at the end. The streamers fluttered out when people blew into the noisemakers. Sergio was being funny, he stuck a noisemaker into his right nostril and blew, I heard a kazoo duck quack sound, and the streamer flew.

And at that moment I got lost in the haze of a memory. I saw myself sitting in the lobby of a police station near Pachacamac south of Lima, Peru. I had gotten picked up naked sleeping on the beach near some mangrove trees where the trees met the water. A tanned beauty and I were naked and sleeping post-coitus under the shade of coconut palm trees. And the policeman who woke us had told us to watch out for all the poisonous snakes. The snakes come out to warm themselves at dawn. But what I remember is all the air conditioners and rotating fans in the lobby of the police station had streamers attached and the streamers were fluttering and flapping, they were flickering and flittering, and I had the hardest time convincing the police that my passport was locked inside a car parked off the Highway of the Americas near the beach. The Peruvians were mad that I was an American and that I had slept with and defiled one of their Incan princesses and that was horrible, so horrible, my being an American and all. And this was also shortly after New Year’s Day of that year but south of the equator the season is warm, their summer is warm, but the ocean water is cold, always cold.

And then I lost the memory and could not tell if the memory had been a dream. I could not tell if the dream had been my dream. I remember the ruins of Pachacamac, the lost temples, and the girl telling me the name of the holy place meant The Seat of God the Earth-Shaker. I remember her laughing as she held my hands, as she led me to the beach. For some strange reason, I was wearing a loin-cloth. Below my lips, I was wearing a heavy purple and gold lip plug, which looked like an elongated and painted soul patch. She was laughing and her long black hair was flowing. Snakes in the sand were undulating away from us, crawling to some shattering beat. And she was dancing, she was topless. And I was watching her, in my mind I was dancing with her, I was dancing with her but only with my eyes. And then she pursed her lips, blew me a kiss, I heard a loud owl’s hoot, and I was back at the bar in 2013 and the bar was shaking, I‘d say the dance floor was quaking, my seat was swirling, and I was rubbing my chin. I got scared a little bit because I had not even had a drink. The dancing girl was now hooting like a howler monkey. I noticed her hair was long and black.

Back at Pat’s Cocktails, the new year of our Lord 2013 was in full tilt. People were dancing but not me. I saw a drunk porno girl spill beer down the front of her blouse and she thought this was funny because she laughed. I stood up and said hello to all my friends again and wished them a happy new year and then I went outside with Darren and I spoke with Reese and I told jokes and listened to their jokes. We were also laughing and having a good time when suddenly I got really tired and very sad. I couldn’t remember all the things I had said and all the things I had done. I couldn’t remember my life anymore. The last year was gone. I felt an urge to blow into a noisemaker, I wanted to make something quaver, ripple, oscillate, but I had left my noisemaker next to Sergio’s noisemaker on the bar and they were of the same ecru color and he had stuck his up his nose. Motorcycle cops kept making u-turns in the middle of the light on the corner and making all the cars trying to cross just wait a few extra seconds more. All the cars at the light had to wait for the cops to make slow u-turns in the middle of the intersection, in the middle of the road. So I got tired of watching this and went home.

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Early December

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Rumrazor

A conflict of emotions,
early December,
I’ve been gone from home so long.

I was that guy, that single and ugly guy at work
who covered the Holidays for the family man.
My job as the per diem part-time worker
was to work all the sick days,
all the Fridays and Mondays
that stretched the fun filled weekends
for their cherished full time staffers.
When late November, early December
rolled around, I stocked up on my hours
and the holiday pay. I did not even bother
decorating my apartment with a Yuletide tree.

And the year I lost my job
because the staff positions being let go
were retrained as the new per diems
in the same positions doing the same jobs
(thereby replacing my fragile function,
a middle management accountant’s trick)
and those lucky enough to be retained
as full time, so lucky, they
would still not be paid any overtime,
I still could not go home.
I did not have the money to go home.

I drank a toast to my industry one early December
and slipped a video of a crackling fireplace
into my player since I could not afford cable.
I could not afford decorations, stockings stuffers,
or even turning on the heat. I could afford eggnog.
I could afford sitting in my cold apartment
wearing long johns and sweat suits under blankets,
drinking eggnog all alone,
and waiting for one of my résumés to bite
after the protracted and sustained Christmas hiatus
listening to carols. I could afford to listen to those
cheerful Christmas carols the whole night sung,
a night that lasted the month of late November,
early December and beyond, hopeful, cheerful,
those never-ending Nöels the way they were sung.

This year I am back picking up the slack,
working weekends, holidays, random rainy sick days.
I am thankful for the hours, the dozen monthly days.
We are all mostly daily hires now,
part of the daily expense allowance
allowed to work.
The unions have died the slow political death.
Vacations are unpaid.

Early December and I see the conflict in their eyes.
My co-workers with children, I feel the choices
they must make this year after everything has changed.
Must they work the Holidays to afford a lifestyle stolen
or should they spend that precious time with family
and friends? I have never had much of an option, only
to work every day I can and scrape on living day to day.

I walked by a nursery on December 4th, a Thursday.
I saw a greenish-grey potted cactus with long spines,
which I found out later was called a blue Myrtle cactus.
And I thought to myself I could hang ornaments, tinsel
from the finger long spines, I could spike a star on top.
And when wrapping lights carefully around the prickles
and the thorns, the festive lights, to make my life happier
and bright, I would have to be very cautious and conscious
that I don’t draw blood.

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Pleiades

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Rumrazor

Her plea traveled through
the microwave spectrum,
please take care of your health,
please make your health
your next concern.
And I could hear her promise
of salty soups and sorted salads
weaving through the eaves.

I search for my seven sisters in the sky
but they are lost in the Southern hemisphere
and they have no plans to iterate
their echoes bathed in blue wisdom.

Their reflective nebulosity is only dust,
filtered light through floating dust
and nothing more,
each speck more majestic
than the many disappointments
of my life, even more enduring
than the poetry of life,
all these fine excuses.

I have a shirt collar to press,
iron both sleeves,
the top button is slightly loose,
and a wine stain colors
one inside seam at the wrist.
My shoes are distended leather,
they are now easier to wear.
I shave. I splash on aftershave
and a memory of an impatient girl
appears in the mirror behind me.
She is always in a rush, needs to apply
her makeup in a rush, this memory.
I smile at her in her frantic hurry.
I tie and retie my tie and she puts her hand
upon my spine to steady herself,
she adjusts high heels, hair curling down,
I step back and she steps forward,
her shoulders dance as she stretches
her little black dress tight
and smooth against her body.

Bloodshed follows inexplicable,
strong mascara strokes thick
against long curved eyelashes,
contortions of full lips
as they seep red blood, these
red lips. She kisses a Kleenex,
a gauze gift of pink gossamer
pendulum wafts upon the floor.
She leans into the mirror and
arranges cleavage and, somehow,
perhaps within the smell of talcum,
the luminous granules of white dust,
she silently sighs and meets my sad gaze
and slightly smirks as she vanishes away
into the fading granules of falling dust.

She slowly vanishes away with a smirk,
leaving me with shaving cream
covering the right half of my face,
a razor held in my left-hand.
Stretch marks spider out
from an overextended torso,
sweaty and wet along the creases,
under the enveloping folds,
the deepening hole in the middle.
Tissues overflow in the bin. Tope.

Mother, your plea is pure philosophia.
And this is the wrong time of the year
for my sisters to look down kindly and
remind me that I will never again hear
any more breathlessly sung epithalamia.

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208 Cubic Ft.

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Rumrazor

The unenviable task
of reassessing a life and
selecting with bitter discretion
what part to throw away,
which parts to keep,
no guarantees.

I mean I can look at a writing desk.
I can say this writing desk
is a good desk. I can give this desk
to my good friend Steve
or offer this desk to my friend Eve.
She will say oh I have a fine corner
for the desk, here in the kids’ romper
room, the kids can draw smiles
with red crayons, can draw smiles
with green crayons on the desk.
They can assemble puzzles, jigsaws
of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz,
sceneries of the Emerald City,
the yellow brick road, paste pictures
together of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
See this drawing of the unsinkable Titanic
in all her fine glory before the ship sunk?
I will see the words Her Majesty’s
Royal Mail Ship written in red ink.
I will look down and see a red drawing
of the Union Jack flapping over a green sea.

Yes, this would be a fitting end
to a good desk that has withstood
so much dog-eared doggerel without
any guarantees.

208 cubic feet, my entire life
must fit into 208 cubic feet.
This book will fit into a box,
a 12 X 15 X 10 inch banker’s box,
the poems of Pier Paolo Passolini,
in they go into a banker’s box.
Lewis Carroll rhyming about a banker
who also ate like a hippopotamus
will find himself inside a banker’s box.
James Frey and his million little
shopworn ways to arrange into words
will be thrown into another box marked
NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION
and hopefully sold at a used book store;
If not, then given away to a local library
or lucklessly found on the side of the road.

Thank you for calling U-Haul,
one of our representatives
will be with you in just a moment.
How many banker’s boxes fit
into a 5X8 foot cargo trailer?
We don’t have a guide or a quick list
that can tell us this but if you apply
some simple math, say if each box is
15 inches long but less than a foot high
then just calculate inch length then
about 4 boxes would fit lengthwise
and then calculate inch height then
about 4 boxes would fit height wise
and then calculate 4 rows of boxes
so 4 x 4 x 4 will get you 64 boxes.
Huh? That does not sound right.
All in the math. Just do the math.

The entirety of my life,
condensed into 64 banker’s boxes,
give or take a few, does not seem right.
Some boxes will be left behind
since I have other things that do not
fit into boxes and never would.
I could get a bigger trailer
or I could get a smaller trailer.
I don’t know if I will,
no guarantees
in this segmented life,
except for intermittent
estate sales.

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Gone in 30 Days

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Rumrazor

All of this,
gone in 30 days.
Both futons, the tables,
all the furniture,
gone in 30 days.
Bespectacled,
walking around
looking at books perched
in the tall bookcases,
water freezing
in the shape of ice cubes
in the refrigerator,
the water knows
le mot juste,
the refrigerator stays,
the carpet will be torn up
and replaced, the carpet stains
will be replaced by new stains
and eventually the fridge
will sputter and melt
and be gone, begone!
I will be gone.
I will leave and be gone,
the tall bookcases
with all the books
will be gone. Sail.

Within 30 days
I will give away the swivel chair
where I have slept in fitful dreams
when my frame was stricken low
everyday with inexplicable fatigue,
when in those exhaustive dreams
I grew old, this is where I grew old
and this was not a fitful dream.

The bathroom mirror
will be wiped clean and clear.
I will use Windex and paper towels
to wipe clean and clear
my bathroom mirror
one last time.

I will see my face
in the clean mirror.
A song will play,
a song that did not exist,
was not composed,
the first time I cleaned
this mirror. A song will play.
My face will blur
when I spray the mirror,
My face will streak
when I wipe the mirror
with paper towels
that did not exist
when I first wiped clean
this mirror with other paper towels
which are now long gone.
The mirror will stay.
A song will play.
My face will not stay.
My face that was thin is long gone.
My jowls that are now fat will be gone.
My tetchy forehead, waxy and rough,
my sketchy scleredema grown,
my image from the mirror will be gone,
nice dream, this clear mirror clean.
I will use one of the paper towels
to also clean my eyeglasses
which I will adjust to my face
while I look at myself in the mirror
one last time before I am gone.

And after 30 days, lets not kid ourselves,
maybe this will happen on the 31st day
or on the first day after the 30 days,
a person will walk inside this space
and they will instruct other people
to replace the stained carpets,
to paint all the walls white,
and the other people will paint
the walls white and the new carpet
will be beige and unstained.
They will clean the bathroom mirror
even though the bathroom mirror
was already clear and clean and spotless.
Only the mirror will know.

This is the fate of all the mirrors,
to know that they will be cleaned
free of dirt and dust and spots
until broken when struck.
The fate of all mirrors is to break
into pieces when struck,
this all the mirrors already know.

The water knows.
Rivers are crossed by people
walking and driving
to and fro.
Sometimes the water is damned,
dammed up, at times the water
does not flow.
Lightning strikes the ocean
and the ocean shrugs.
Bridges are built by men, bridges built
to cross these bays and cross these rivers
but not all men get across these bridges
as built, le mot juste.

In 30 days, I too will be gone
and I have many bridges over rivers
which I have to cross, bridges through
which I have to get across. Sail.

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Kirk Douglas, Rededicated

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Rumrazor

Yesterday, a very interesting day. I made plans to go with Nick Coviello, Denzel Whitaker, Eric Lawson, and Leslie Maryann Neal to go see what may very well have been the last appearance of Kirk Douglas at any celebrity event. His walk-of-fame star was being rededicated at 7pm and following the rededication then Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was screening Kubrick’s Spartacus at 8pm for a quarter.

Mindful of my money situation and having no gas in my truck, and aware of my friend Marie Lecrivain’s penchant for alternate transportation, I decided to buy a metro day pass ($6) and take the orange line to the redline and take the subway which would drop me off right underneath the Hollywood and Highland complex. If I had driven, parking would have cost me $22 dollars.

The day was humid and sticky so I decided to wear a “breathable” t-shirt. The day started pleasantly enough, I walked to the orange line bus stop about 2 blocks north of my apartment, got the day pass, the benches were all full so I stood close to the curb. Immediately, some scruffy guy with a bicycle stood directly behind me and began bumping me from behind. I believed that he was checking out my back pockets to see if he could pickpocket me so I walked a bit further down the curb. He then proceeded to stand directly behind some Mexican lady with bags. I took out my phone and began to take a picture but he noticed this and then took off on his bicycle.

The orange bus ride was good. The bus drops you off across the street from the redline North Hollywood Lankershim station. I crossed the street with a crowd and then took two sets of escalators down deep into the ground. The LA subway is pretty deep underground and the Lankershim station is huge and vaulted and quite impressive. This fact did not keep two British people from talking loudly about how “the underground” in London is bigger and cleaner and more efficient.

When I got to Hollywood and Highland, I had about an hour to spare. Eric and Leslie were already in the area and they told me to meet them at the Jack-in-the-box on the corner of Highland and Fountain. I checked a map on my phone and found out that Fountain is a mile south of Grauman’s so I told Eric and Leslie that I was going to eat somewhere closer to the event. They told me they were almost finished and were about to walk back anyway.

I went upstairs in the Hollywood & Highland Complex and ate at The Great Steak and Potato company. I ordered a philly cheesesteak with a diet coke. They tried charging me for fries I didn’t order and when I was trying to fix the order, suddenly the Asian man couldn’t understand a word I was saying until I threw up my hands and said, fine just cancel the order, then suddenly he understood what I was saying.

While I was eating, a very attractive brunette in a Supergirl costume with a top hat walked in and asked me and several people for a lighter or matches. Nobody eating could help her. She went outside and met a guy half-dressed as Batman and I guess he had a lighter because when I returned my tray and walked outside, they were both smoking.

Outside, and from my vantage point, I stopped and watched another spectacle on Hollywood Blvd. The Storage Wars production team had a section of the sidewalk blocked off for a promotion. From what I could tell, they had a closed cargo container on the sidewalk and if anybody in the crowd could guess the money value in the container without going over, then they would win whatever was in the container. The catch was that you had to sign up at this little table that was swamped. I took this picture.

Eric and Leslie walked up about then and we sat down for a spell before heading out to Grauman’s. Hot brunette Top Hat Supergirl left but then a lady Chucky carrying a chucky doll and a guy in a purple Spiderman costume and also a guy dressed like Super Mario all congregated with Batman and began arguing loudly about something. We thought that was funny and I got Eric to take a picture surreptitiously with my phone. If they had noticed that we took a picture then they would have come over and bugged us for money.

I took a picture of El Capitan across the street before we went over to Grauman’s.

At Grauman’s, the area where Kirk Douglas was to appear was already packed. Some Swiss tourists jostled their way in front of us and they were like 10 feet tall. Then this nice Puerto Rican family sidled next to me. They were speaking Spanish and had no idea why people were all standing around with cameras waiting. I recognized the accent and spoke to them and they were very surprised to meet another Puerto Rican in Los Angeles. They asked if I was visiting and I said I lived here. I also explained to them that Kirk Douglas was 95 years old, that he already had a stroke, and that this might be his last celebrity appearance in his life. They didn’t seem to know Kirk Douglas and I rattled off some movies he had starred in, they nodded politely but I could tell they still had no idea. This girl was standing on my other side and she distracted my camera phone temporarily.

Kirk Douglas came out and gave about a 4 minute speech. I took this video. I post it here in raw form but I might post it later with intros and outros and possibly subtitles later on youtube. As you can tell, his speech is affected by the stroke. I can’t understand a word he is saying. I might post the subtitles as “arrhgg, ummggg, gleeeep, fankuuuu.”

INSERT FUTURE LINK TO YOUTUBE VIDEO HERE (I don’t know why wordpress did not allow my video to be posted. C’est la vie.)

Nick and Denzel still had not showed up, so Eric, Leslie and I decided to go and save seats inside the movie theatre. Grauman’s seats 1000 people or more easily and this is in the main room. Grauman’s also has private balconies all around where you can pay extra to watch movies in private. I took a picture of the side walls and whatever statue is above the theatre screen. Nick and Denzel showed up before the movie started.

Spartacus is Stanley Kubrick’s second film, if I remember correctly, and Kirk Douglas himself put up the money to finish the film when Universal balked at the movie going over budget. Dalton Trumbo wrote the great screenplay. This was a risky move by Douglas, since Trumbo was blacklisted at the time because he was part of the Hollywood Ten. This is an entry full of falsehoods on Trumbo that was written in Conservapedia. Some people in this country are still rabid communist haters.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Dalton_Trumbo

His screenplay is brilliant. These are some of my favorite lines in the movie. My memory is faulty at my age and I can’t remember the lines or the subtlety of the lines exactly but the characters said something like this:

Laurence Olivier to Tony Curtis while Curtis is helping sponge wash Olivier in a pool- “My taste includes both snails and oysters and now I want to penetrate you sexually from behind, O Catamite! My Catamite!”

Jean Simmons to Kirk Douglas the first time she tells him she loves him- “Please forbid me to never NOT make you a sandwich.”

Jean Simmons to Kirk Douglas when Douglas is timid with her because of her pregnancy- “I’m pregnant not fragile. I want you to ravage me. Hard. Really really hard. Like so hard that I scream I’m pregnant not fragile.”

Well, those lines are not verbatim but the sentiments are what I remembered from the actual lines. Peter Ustinov was also a standout in the movie. I didn’t like the ending though, which has Jean Simmons crying at the feet of a crucified Kirk Douglas and offering up their child for all to see, including about two dozen Roman soldiers staring directly at her who didn’t think that was a strange sight at all. The narrator should have ended the film with “and not a single fuck was given by a Roman soldier on that day.”

After the film finished, I had to hurry my goodbyes to catch the next to last redline train in order to return home without calling a cab. The return trip was packed, both the redline subway and the orange line bus. Almost all of the commuters looked sad and weary and looked down at the ground. I did see two black women burst into an argument at the Hollywood and Highland station, something about “don’t stare at me you fat ugly bitch” and “I’m not staring at yo ugly face you stinky ugly hoe cocksucka, I don‘t want to catch AIDS in the corneas!” There were more expletives in there, I heard something about “crackhead meth looking toothless bitch” and “yo ass so big yo turds need their own train to get out.” After that brief outburst, I think I saw some of the sad people smiling slightly.

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East of Hartford

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Rumrazor

Winter east of Hartford, winter east of Hartford,
a four mile paved road, a four mile paved road,
nothing but an abandoned
power cross station abandoned to
home the homeless, the homeless have a home
abandoned
somewhere east of Hartford, an empty road
with nothing but watergrass growing tall
on either side for miles, with nothing
but suburbs fading in the distance
and trash thrown in the tall grass
on either side of the four mile road
paved and leading straight
from one suburb to another suburb
on the outskirts east of Hartford.

A green couch missing cushions,
the cushions missing from the green couch
that greets the cars pulling into an abandoned
power cross station, the fence kicked in
and the windows shot out and the kids,
the kids drink and party and carry on,
the homeless walk the long road in winter
when winter snows, the homeless walk the road
and the kids throw beer bottles against the walls
and fuck on the mattresses flat on the floors
where the homeless sleep when winter snows,

a green couch, broken chairs, burnt trash
inside corroded storage drums, burnt rust.

And rusted fuchsia is the color of a girl’s dream
driving a rusted fuchsia car faded, a girl’s dream
car of a color handpicked about a decade ago.
Behind her a purple suburb fades,
before her an orange reddish suburb faint
and shimmering at dusk, a shortcut taken
to a destination faint and shimmering at dusk.

And as she approaches the only structure visible
for miles, a curiosity for any passersby,
a corroded steel drum is thrown out on the road,
rolls out on the road, a girl drives her 132,452
thousand miles of rusted fuchsia car off the road
and sinks head first into the watergrass mud,
hitting her face on the silent horn,
her face splattering with blood, car in mud.

And whether this was done by kids having fun
or by some homeless man hopelessly drunk,
we don’t know, nor will we ever know,
she was dragged bloody and moaning
across the lonely four mile road,
past an empty rusty storage drum
in the middle of the lonely four mile road,
past broken chairs, past a green couch,
past graffiti declaiming a football team over another,
declaiming one team to go team go team go, and
exhorting the other team to go suck a bag of dicks,
yes these are the last words read by a blood red girl
with a busted nose, go suck a bag of dicks.

All buildings are at risk for extinction. Some
burn down, some are taken by the elements, some
are condemned, some are demolished, some
are demolished to make way for new homes, some
are demolished to make way for new businesses. Some
are taken down because they remained up for too long.
Some buildings remained standing for too long.

Winter, somewhere east of Hartford,
a paved road between
one suburb with new homes built
from a paved road between
another suburb with new homes built
from a paved road shrunk
with new homes built
from growing suburbs growing into
a shrinking paved road, now
a three mile lonely road, once
a lonely four mile road, once
not a paved road at all, once
a dirt horse and buggy road, once
not even a dirt road at all, once
watergrass and a flooded plain when
the Connecticut overflowed.

And a good place this flooded plain
to build a power station, this flooded plain,
some enterprising businessman thought.
First we can power Hartford with coal
then we can route electricity east of Hartford
some enterprising businessman thought.

Winter, east of Hartford,
snow covers a flat concrete expanse,
half closer to one suburb than to the other.
Cars still park at this spot on moonlit nights.
Beer bottles are drunk and broken
on this concrete patch or thrown into the fields,
Cars park or squeal tires in circles,
anybody can go and see the circular tire prints.

Posted in My Poetry | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments