The Art of Jaywalking

B.A. Notes

2009-09-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

9/14 notes:

Interesting to consider is the psychointellect that plagues the Argentine population. In Buenos Aires, which boasts the largest per capita population of psychoanalysts of any major city in the world, the curse seems to be in the air, little ironies on each gust of wind. Someone just today pointed out the prevalence of mirrors in the city, and the image-consciousness of Porteños is only a veneer for their deeper conflict. They are a people in constant search of identity. Am I, once again, as well? Walking the streets with Manny, we see through each trend to every soul. The entire world, indeed our civilization, functions on the exploitation of our insecurities. We are a people plagued, in Argentina and beyond. We walk free, two young men grappling with the grand pressure that I contend may rest most heavily on our shoulders. I am forever empathetic to the struggle of (young) women, but it must be pointed out that, profound as their struggle is, the struggle of a young man for his soul garners little empathy. As we cherished our moment out on the rooftop with wine beneath a whimsical night sky, Manny reminded himself that he'd be back home soon. "I have to finish school, I have to, man." But it is currency for a life he does not desire. Roger had been silent til now, and he spoke up. "He who rides the tiger is afraid to dismount." I walk with abandon but we are all on our tiger, afraid in our way, yet with this consciousness the goal must be to find the courage to dismount.

Pretty Wings

2009-07-08T21:34:00.001-07:00

tnaegaP ytuaeB sdrawkcaB

2009-06-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

When Words Fail (And They Do)

2009-06-22T23:04:00.000-07:00

Dedication

2009-06-20T23:28:00.001-07:00

A Typical Day: Tuesday

2009-06-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

i wake and step outside to find a woman standing on my lawn beside a basset hound. she wears a purple skirt, nothing on her feet & is lost in a daze. i greet them and slip by, grab bicycle & hit the road. i have tired of my hairs length & enter a sidestreet barbershop. sex mags adorn the tiny waiting table & are strewn about on counter. a cute little jellybean of an old Cuban man welcomes me warmly & plops me into chair, douses tools in barbicide & goes to work. he asks me about young ladies & sex, asks me to tell him dirty stories. he points out a back closet with curtain draped in doorway & explains that this is where he takes his girls & i do my darndest to engage him in great explicit conversation, what's a barbershop for anyway? later, seeking a change of pace , i inquire:

ENZO: How long did you go to school to be a barber?
RAUL: Long time ago, 2 years or so.
ENZO: How long did it actually take you to learn to be a barber?
RAUL: I am still learning. But one week.
ENZO: Yes, exactly.

i do not contest the length of his study; rather, the length of the formality, this damn institution we champion blissfully without serious contemplation.

ENZO: 1 week, $400 or alternative method of payment, you teach me the art of the barber.
RAUL: Done.

these alternative compensations can be a bit more problematic with strangers but i reckon i can whip something up for this libidinous bastard.

i meet my Mother who alleges to love long hair on men but is now clearly relieved to be brunching with a no longer obviously derelict son. i cannot blame her; this place is hard on people. i give them plenty of hell but i promise i'm trying to make her proud & take care of them. i try to explain things in my strange language: i hate to spell this out but just in case no one gets it, i'm a flaneur, a street poet, a leaf on the wind. you call me irresponsible but i promise you i'm shouldering the greatest of responsibilities. i'm connected to something deeper here, i want to craft work from the inside out, free of commercial demand or monetary motivation. i do not need industry & i will use as little as possible to transcend it. conventions do not concern me. i do not wait for permission because i'd rather beg madly for forgiveness. i am always looking for compromise. & i love my Mother like the earth but Mama i will never ever ever audition for American Idol. you taught me too much.

MAMA: You know we don't care about money. We just put so much into you and we were counting on a good return, that's all.
ENZO: Be on the lookout.

further attempts at explanation will surely follow, & as we wrap up she watches me tip & chides me right there about it, leaving too much & i just laugh.

around suppertime i head out again on my lonesome for a nice meal. i rarely arrange dates because i usually get caught up talking to some old woman with beautiful stories & sure enough tonight i run into a haggard queen with bright eyes who approaches me & asks what i think of Jim Morrison. she tells me she was the one he could never get, i buy her dinner & she tells me of their vagaries.

around midnight i receive a curious call from Harlan Peabody. we'd only spoken once in a chance meeting; how he'd found me at the house i'm currently occupying will remain part of the mystery. Harlan struggles to function among the machines and bounces here and there, from hospital to couch to park bench where he apparently is now & asks me to meet him for a game. a game of what, useless to speculate. i find him in the park & sure enough he's setting up the most cockeyed damn board game i've ever seen, Settlers of Catan, insisting we can learn quickly. he's brought a girl who sits dumbfounded as he explains the hexes, establishing resources & various other absurd intricacies. i call over a park dweller who sits with us & simply watches this whole screwball scene. Harlan is full of excitement still after 20 minutes of explaining the game with us not one bit closer to understanding. the girl implores him to give up, put it away. leave it out and do not ever give up, i remind him intensely.

daylight arrives & on my walk home i notice bundles of lumber in front of a house on the corner. i telephone my father.

ENZO: i know i shouldn't be telling you this but there's good wood stranded over here.

he sighs dejectedly.

POP: Yea, you shouldn't have told me. i can't save the world.
ENZO: But it never stops you from trying.

Unbearable Lightness

2009-06-11T00:32:00.001-07:00

she was going to Sicily in 3 days and i was leaving too, headed North to Albina and the whole family up there. and one afternoon sitting on my windowsill:

JULIANNA: Enzo?
ENZO: Si, Juli.
JULIANNA: I'm going to miss you.

i kissed her hand as she touched my face.

JULIANNA: Not so much when I'm gone, but when I come back here...

(a beat.)

ENZO: Why would you say something like that?
JULIANNA: I'm only kidding.
ENZO: Yes, but you weren't. And that's a really shitty thing to say. Why would you say that?
JULIANNA: I don't know. I was just trying to be funny.

and watching her say this i realized her sincerity and softened. she did her best to continue with an explanation.

JULIANNA: ...I think that humor is inside of all the tragedy. They're inside of each other. All the terrible things in the world aren't too terrible. Sometimes you can only laugh.

and i remembered something she'd told me that evening on the ledge at Piazza Garibaldi that i imagined to have an eerie degree of truth after this moment. her father had died and after the funeral she'd left her mother and sister in Greece and come to Roma, his hometown. she'd told me that once you get used to leaving people and allowing the inevitable hurt, you escape the imprisonment of it all and you are genuinely free.

in these last days we've continued our sweet routine, and it works because it's so completely organic: we sleep for few hours in the morning- separately, because i’m almost always writing or reading instead- and then she makes the trip across town and stands beneath my window and calls my name. in the evening she leaves for work and at midnight i meet her there, have drinks and smokes with her and the guys and then we spend the dark hours walking the city. on our last night we slept out on her Roman rooftop and i counted the fabulous antennas before dozing off. two hours later we woke in blazing sun, it was 7:00 and she was supposed to be at the station at 6:30 to leave for Sicily, and so the whirlwind began and we ran down to her apartment and she darted around, throwing things into bags, pulling on clothes, and she would pause between breakneck packing acrobatics to reward me with a few gentle kisses. we ran to the station, she turned and gave me a deep fleeting kiss, and she was off.

Faithful Notes

2009-06-08T20:14:00.001-07:00

The I.V. Report

2009-06-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

there are still flowers in my hair as i wake in Isla Vista squalor, on floor of Rory's shitbox amongst bottles, various clothing articles, & sports paraphernalia. we rolled in Tuesday evening & after the requisite parking battle trekked over to his place on Del Sur to find the above note slapped on the door.

residents of this tainted paradise known as I.V. are familiar with these smutty conditions: you can bring a girl back to your place & she won't complain about the absence of toilet paper because it's par for the course & she's taken to carrying a role in purse at all times. Rory McGovern is an old pal from childhood, perfectly content for the time being to be living here as a shithead (to use his choice vocab): his residence appears to be an oversized closet with zero semblance of domesticity, save for maybe the pile of crusty dishes in sink & cute Tuscan dish towel, now soggy and discolored and draped over faucet, a mother's blissfully naive contribution that i imagine gets a special wash to be the centerpiece of that kitchenette when she comes to visit, though she's probably smarter and never has. blankets are scotch-taped to windows to cover for decaying curtains; a bedroom door has been borrowed & sits on bulky construction supporters to serve as kitchen table/beer pong set-up, graced by red cups, single rollerblade, nail clippers & beer-stained lease agreement. there is no legitimate furniture, just lawn chairs & milk crates & the whole joint reeks of hungry men & mildew.

but we are more than comfortable and so Wednesday was lovely as this place can often be for an artful bum, spent with cervezas & a late afternoon ocean dip. Emile & i floated on waves & watched birds in formation & when the tide came in we walked the streets salty & invigorated. we got into it with folks & shared pitas hummus & cervezas on the street for supper before Rory reminded us of a fiesta on Del Playa he needed to hit. and so he led in salvaged sweat pants & the way Rory walks is a great joy of mine, shuffling as he would across the kitchen to fetch a bowl of easy mac, a short-distance stumble he just keeps alive & it's thrilling. Emile's blackened toenails have finally fallen off & he's carrying them around in awe, even stopping folks to talk about it & what it means.

i was laying out on the front sidewalk smoking & staring up at the night & she comes out in heated telephone convo with a boy & she sat next to me and sobbed to him for a good 15 minutes before hanging up. i handed her the book & she watched me intently as she took it & when i continued with my smoke she put her head down & uncapped the pen. she sat beside me in quiet, transfixed by these words that were suddenly pouring out of her. after 3 pages she capped the pen slowly and closed the book, holding it tightly for a moment in her indian hands. her tears had begun to dry & she thanked me silently as she handed back the book. Emile & Rory bummed outside-Emile can spot female tears from miles away, never misses them-& he began to console her as Rory & i sat beside them & argued about shapeshifting & shaman, & this argument was still running as we stumbled towards burritos at 3AM, but now Rory was incredulous & stewing about the fact that we'd let this girl go without so much as a phone number, and he's screaming it into the raucous Isla Vista morning, RORY: she was HOT! and she was CRYING! to YOU! i sat back on that because i figured one of you two assholes had it in the bag! you had it made! what the hell were you thinking?!

...but like shapeshifting, the case is tricky to argue & so after burritos, stuffed and wasted & me with bum ankle, we get amped up & decide to settle it all with a footrace. we enlist another wayfarer to referee & call the race & there we were, the three of us goons in mustang stride pumping the street for some vacuous victory. the outcome of this race is still undecided but for a moment we were in perfect stride and there was stillness.

The Cole St. Sessions

2009-05-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

the rhythm is singular and yet familiar & this place is deep in the groove. Amer feels the strings as i work them, taken with the soul and transitions-Gloriosa Imperium! Tom watches the burrito spin in microwave with cosmic anticipation. swine flu is BULLSHIT, he reiterates, the pork has been to 300 degrees and back. behind this door the epidemic is well understood and if we are the 2nd through 9th in America to keel over, fuck it, our words are accurate. turbo means turbo, after all.

the jam began with a metro duet inspired by the damn lotus as usual but more specifically by the sign on cab door reminding us that we're on camera always in America. mise en abyme: our world is just like the elevator study we'd been discussing, everyone mirrors the repression and we all fall down and into line. in Paris we breeze through the station and never dip hands into pockets with much purpose, but here we stand wilting beneath camera glare trying to work into rhythm and finally we blow past the gates & sharks continue to circle but conviction, as it does, has triumphed.

just above Union Square the alto wails & we stop to smoke and listen. with our metro savings we can afford to give more, though i've never really thought of it like this. Emile begins dialogue.

EMILE: Do you think these people are living-are they alive in their lives?
SAM: You gotta remember that people got families. There's stuff to worry about for folks. Everyone is alive, just maybe not how you want them to be. But we're alive.

as i reach into our bag i find an album i've been hauling, a favorite lately, Monk & Trane at Carnegie Hall and i give it to Sam in exchange for his disc. Emile wants to talk but the night don't sound the same without that saxophone so i pull him away and on we go.

a cufflinked mac at V is holding it down upstairs with a silly scheme so we drink up and bounce across the way. apples are rotting outside Specs but they speak, of beer cash AND care. why are you giving me this, he asks humbly. because i'm terrified of it and i've yet to make peace with it; indeed it is made to be spent. NO! he reminds, it's made to be MONEY! and he is rotting right in front of me but for a moment begins to stammer in a foreign tongue & i recognize the Berber and he calls me AMAZIGH: free man! that's why i gave you the money.

Greg sits on the bench beside us rolling a smoke and watching for sharks. he looks to be an IT man or possibly Sierra Club president. we speak of predators & work into rhythm and Emile bounds up the street to pose for the silliest picture with a motorcycle shark. his fear had set in, this was clear by now, but he still understands at the deepest level that there is nothing to be afraid of; i'll get back to this later.

in the Saloon Daniel Castro is on fire! band is tuned in tight & the crowd is under the spell. we swoop beers and throw ourselves onto the floor and bodies collide, young devils in blue dresses and old Santa Fe lovers on the town, we are all ONE and tranced. Emile is doing a chicken dance in front of the bass player, i'm holding space center with the beat and bass thumping out each chakra, the hammond b3 whirling through chest and Castro's licks pouring out of me and down my face & back. a blue dress meets me at intervals, sweat glistens on hair & in air as it flies body to body and we are THROUGH waiting, for love, dreams, and opportunities because we ARE love, THIS is our dream, and we will take this opportunity fading fast as i scribble so we pour outside to find Greg haunting the old Western street, birds are chirping in my ear & though lovely all sense tells me they might be professionals and so we escape to the alley and it was here that we met Rachael's band.

she was undoubtedly their maestro though with lovely modesty & the curses of the alley caught me once again with a charming witch carrying a single rose. had she found our rose, the stinking rose Emile had left at wandering feet? he'd wanted Jessica to have it that last evening we'd been here, but now Rachael carried it beneath the moonlit laundry fluttering above us. among her band was Thomas, a culinary innovator doing a stint at Round Table in Bayview but it's a study in Pizzeria Economics. when he gets out he'll apprentice in France & Emile teaches him phrases to throw at hard-nosed chefs. while it's miserable, Round Table has tricks to teach and he's paying attention and runs it all down for me as the cab skids round corners & drops off hills and with it goes my stomach. at her place and as we pour in the building is wide awake, she yells to her neighbor and turns the key over.

she brings me her guitar assuming i can get something out of it, and as she opens the case says "mmm...smell her" and the instrument has a spirit which she cultivates. Amer shuffles in from upstairs and her cat Hemingway jumps to his lap. Emile digs the groove & provides the beat. our set:

Save Tonight
4th of July, Asbury Park
Can't You See?
Summer Girls

and the last is an encore, Rachael and Amer join in on the chorus & we get down. through the kitchen is a tiny back utility room, a table sits candlelit and Thomas and Peter sit smoking over tunes. Peter is a starving chemist, yes ANYONE can starve, but his mind is brilliant & he will find a way. Van Morrison comes on and we all rush in to sing and dance around the table and we brought in the daylight this way.

as i left, i have a vivid memory of scribbling a note to leave in which i believe i wrote:

could fish be fish without fishermen?

SHARKS have always touched me, since i was a little boy consumed by the ocean. i have loved them despite the fact that they often keep me from the waves as i am terrified of their lurking shadows. but sharks make the ocean alive, and an ecosystem cannot be without apex predators. reviewing my notes from the Cole St. Sessions and in my book someone had written:

the sadness is not to be overwhelming but instead to be.

...turbo means turbo, after all...

Ceilings Silly Human Beings

2009-04-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

when i'm gone i commit to it but when i am here i have my haunts, and the Porch is particular sanctuary, last girl i took there doesn't quite feel into it-or maybe she does-and identifies it as a Hipster hangout which just dismisses everything, that damn word. but it's my place, from parquet floor up through the little agua bottles and to ceiling-CEILING! (note: return to subject)-and of course cuisine drink and voodoo vibes; this place is inside of me. and yesterday morning i'm in early ringing in a curious day with Lonnie, owner and good man always treats a regular right, runs a good ship. the Porch is right down the street from my digs, but right around my corner is chirpy little diner putting lots of lovely young women to work and of course i have some involvements such as the waitress who was passing by the Porch and sees Lonnie and me kicked back in rocking chairs and conversation ensues, she upset after reading my words and assuming some sort of disrespect or infidelity and this is how it goes, it is par for course and fair game though often infuriating as all hell.

so CEILING! working with my father yesterday we walk through his house and discuss projects, he mentions his signature paint texture and incorporating it in new business ideas and i can't stop thinking. on the topic of CONSCIOUSNESS and the elevation of, this is dead on balls: he knows his texture is unique, says if someone wants to steal it and call it theirs whatever but he came up with it genuinely and the soul is all his. it's a circular texturing pattern of sorts he's talking about aesthetics and stimulation, and i'm listening and thinking of the child staring up at night at ceiling, processing circles instead of skiptrowel, what it could inspire within and all the possibilities if that consciousness can indeed be elevated. and this poetry is the same story, this girl and even Marcus pursuing the more noble worries sometimes but we're calling you up to somewhere new, where we accept this AND that, man AND beast, diabolical AND divine, and if you wish to rush the prosecution i will accept condemnation and worry elsewhere, and Thoreau said it well: "I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was still a more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as i was."

i sit down with him and map out plans to open minds and deepen souls, realize the scope of a human being and ceilings too.

Coocoo's Nest

2009-04-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

above the bar at Vesuvio is the word from W.C. Fields: "t'was a woman who drove me to drink...and I never had the decency to write and thank her." all these words...that is all and exactly what i'm trying to do.

i moved to the great circus city in February of '04. even before i'd landed here, i was wrapped up in a grotesque sideshow that seemed to get deeper with each passing day. freaks were plentiful and that's always been the way i like it. i'd happened across an underground performing arts plot of sorts, brainchild of a quixotic old opera queen named Claude Margot who ran the whole show from his castro victorian. he'd roped a great many showbiz hopefuls into his academy and it was booming for him, and for me too. it was here that i met pianist Jackie Molineaux, and i began to work with him in his basement flat under an old victorian mansion on Webster. Jackie was wrapped up in a torrid love affair with another SF pianist named Jesse Caldwell with whom he studied and fucked for two hours each day. in the few hours immediately prior to this rendezvous Jackie would experience a particular psychasthenia which saw him an absolute wreck, popping all sorts of pills and scurrying around the basement shrieking little curses at Jesse, and of course it was these hours when our work was scheduled. this was just another one of those things that made me wonder just like i did out on that street as a babe: what was betwixt and between?

Jackie had introduced me to Jesse on the street one evening and we soon began to schedule work at his studio. unlike Jackie who was at Claude Margot's fickle beck and call, Jesse was an ivory tickling hustler with a steady gig. he played a downtown hotel several night a week and made a decent buck for it too. but some people are just too full of genius and generosity to keep up appearances and Jesse's living situation alone was the stuff of fanciful fables. he apparently owned property here and there along the California coast, but he holed himself up in his own little basement apartment off Hyde, a one bedroom shithole with the bedroom used as a storage room. this left the slightly larger main room right off a kitchenette and a bathroom that was evermore graced with multiple variety underpants. he apparently slept in hallway hide-a-bed that was always folded up haphazardly with blankets and bizarre stuffed animals still hanging out. he kept a cat who was his dear and darling and had her tended to with no less than 8 food dishes scattered around the place, in bathtub and on top of piano even, and cat food was always ground into the carpet, and due to this particular extravagance the stench of feline hit at the gate and would trail on me as i left and flung it shut. somehow Jesse had managed to cram a Steinway grand into the main room just larger than the piano itself, and i was always reminded of the pear in the grappa bottle and wondered if it was a similar riddle. around the perimeter of the room and on dozens of makeshift shelves were hundreds upon hundreds of records. visits were invariably tutorials in highly realized chaos: he'd run out barefoot pulling up pants to let me in and then run back in to fiddle with a song or feed the cat or tend to something on the stove, and he was always cooking something. it got even more interesting when he would take in down-and out friends and their pets, such as Alvin Yen, his replacement pianist who wore long hair and with willowy frame looked strikingly feminine, and Jackie hated him inexplicably and when he would cover for Jesse at the hotel Jackie would pay a visit and complain about the tasteless woman at the piano. when Alvin stayed with Jesse he was accompanied by his two weimaraners and the chaos reached unfathomable profundity.

and i stuck around this lunacy because Jackie and Jesse were each other's women, as it pertains to the aforementioned struggle. they drove each other mad and i never spent a dull moment with either clown. they sung each other's praises and cursed their names in singular breaths and each time one of them would sit down at a piano and lay their hands on the keys it was plain to see that it was not a piano at which they sat but an altar at which they worshipped their divinity and serenaded that which they would never wholly grasp but which they refused to abandon pursuit of, for we have the courage to love and lend ourselves while the gravedigger perspires behind us.

in the poet's chair at bookstore, upstairs and sun pours through window and skitters along hardwood beams to the feet of girl just walked in, the one i've waited for and knew i'd find here eventually. i only see her feet now as my eye follows the sun and as she saunters over to shelf beside me, and my eye traces up from her black boots a white dress flutters in window breeze and black hair graces naked shoulders, and just then she turns to look at me and tired but tender burnt eyes belonging to me meet longing and burning and disaster in hers. then footsteps on the stairs and man appears. heads have been dropped again and he walks towards her and they share inaudible words. he retreats to chair behind mine and against wall as she roams the center of the room, at apex of a dangerous triangle but i just end up in them and i never know quite how.

And So, Of Course

2009-03-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

in a scene from my dreams last night, i'm on stage and Kimmy and my old drama teacher are out in the audience eating sushi and drinking tea. it's some kind of dress rehearsal feels like, and he's giving me a note but i can't hear it, and he's using the microphone but i genuinely can't hear it, what he's saying exactly, and he and Kimmy are so flustered and upset and disappointed but i really sincerely cannot hear it.

i took off a few hours yesterday and drove down for some time with Shya. Shya is a healer my mother has known for years and years and lives in a fabulous old adobe compound in Emerald Hills. my dear mother gifts me time with her and Shya and i have a great rapport, her work is so holy to me and she knows i get it on its deepest level. i'm particularly fond of the CST and today i settled into her tranquil room on the hill under trees with fire blazing and handed it all over to her. with the crystals placed beneath my palms, i correctly guess their sacred energies and the Yin beneath my right hand is pulsating in rhythm with the pain in my side. i hesitate to confess support of any principles, but the Taijitu has stayed with me ever since i first saw it hanging off that little red-haired girls neck on our yellow school bus in the 3rd grade. Shya works and i drift in and out of consciousness, into and out from the subconscious theta and even into the unconscious, though i can't say much about that right now.

and i'm torn up this morning because last night with Pencil, he works the restaurant on his own on Sunday nights and loves company, and last night he cooked me up a lovely spread: lentils with pesto and root vegetables, cuban rice and beans with plantains tofu bok choy and a ginger drizzle and then a gorgeous ratatouille. and he's so happy to do it for me, maybe because he knows i'd always do the same for him even in my current state of being absolutely broke but still and constantly full and inspired by the generosity i've always found to spare. i wrap up with the lady i've taken dinner with and walk her home and then i meet Pencil who is smoking as he does so devotedly in the street, and it was Pencil who showed me how to smoke to begin with, throw all that science to the wind and appreciate each toxic inhale best you can. and we walk the middle of sunday victorian streets with wine bottle and enter bar, and the situation is now that i'm in debt because i've always valued generosity over financial responsibility, and of course they're not antithetical but i tend to give more than i have and as product of my upbringing try never to stress too much over things monetary, and now i really have nothing left. but i won't let Pencil pay for anything, Pencil who struggles on his own working double kitchen shifts and scraping by with the essentials but no health coverage which i hate anyway and grit my teeth each time i send in my $250 to those greedy assholes and support this diabolical scheme we're stuck in....but anyway, Pencil has no coverage so in emergencies he's fucked, and just last week he'd sliced a piece of his finger off and so he ducked into a ratty Chinatown hospital around the corner and paid $700 for stitches. and he struggles like this but i find his life to be so beautiful and try to celebrate it for him when he cannot. i will not let him pay so i hand over my card linked to once promising account now overdrawn and each new charge racks up an additional $40 overdraft fee, and while i'm usually cool and know it will work out, i'm stressed, the bartender is cold and only cracking our beers open so i don't include a tip, first time i've ever done and justified that because i usually tip like a fool, and on the second round as i sit down she complains about it across the bar, and i might have deserved it even in this rare instance, but it just seemed like such a loudmouth insensitive thing to do and i felt like standing up to the bitch and asking her where the fuck she thinks she works, as if it's Death & Co. in NYC and she's actually making drinks, as if she hasn't gotten her tips tonight and she needs to publicly hassle me for $2 nevermind circumstance. but instead i finish my beer, borrow $50 bill from Pencil and walk up to her. i apologize and remind her kindly that it's called a tip for a reason and no matter how cheap someone appears to be, maybe there's a story and you needn't hassle them and furthermore that patience is a virtue and i show her the $50 that i might have left for her and then pocket it and sign a $20 tip to the receipt. and as we walked out she thanked us with brilliant artificial warmth and i don't think i could have felt any worse.

Shya works on my head and asks me to talk to her about any falls i've taken, head trauma, and i just start with the first thing i can remember and i add a preface that it's sort of insignificant to me, i hardly think about it and have much more traumatic histories, all the while completely conscious that it is obviously significant because i'm talking about it. silly how we talk, often so mindlessly, without realization that even these mindless rants-especially these mindless rants-are rooted so deep. so i tell her about being three years old at the playground, walking across the monkey bars and falling and breaking my nose on them. and my mother was right there watching me, so of course i think i can say that this was one of my earliest memories, as far as consequential trauma goes, of me pushing against her and the confines, because of course i should have been swinging from those monkey bars instead, right? and she was there again at age four when i ran into a bathroom and cracked my skull on a urinal, and then when i had my brain episodes at age 7 she is all i remember. and if we tie this to the sacred energies, and we think of the mind opposite and one with the soul, the mind must be the yang and soul the yin...and so all these head traumas-YANG traumas-my mother was present, my mother the yang, while my father the yin was mysteriously absent. and so, of course, i'll spend much of my time trying to straighten all that out, when maybe it needn't be straightened at all.

Hippiesterbeatnikcooltooldorksleaze

2009-03-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

transcription of conversation segment with Basie this afternoon:

BASIE: Enz, what do you want?
ENZO: Do I have to?
BASIE: What?
ENZO: Want. Do I have to want something?
BASIE: I don't see any other reason for us to talk right now.
ENZO: What if I just wanted to talk shit, catch up?
BASIE: Alright Enzo. What's happening with you?
ENZO: Ah come on, why you gotta make fun?
BASIE: You're an easy target.
ENZO: Oh yeah? Why? ...I mean I know but let's hear it.
BASIE: You grew your hair out, you don't have a cellphone anymore, you type shit on a typewriter and write letters and poems about every girl you meet and fall in love with...you are a dork.
ENZO: Ok, how's Horace?
BASIE: Are you stalking me?
ENZO: Nah, merely intuiting.
BASIE: You just worked it out that I must be hanging with Horace Armenian huh?
ENZO: Yes I did.
BASIE: Oh. How?
ENZO: Ah, he just got lots of ridicule in his bones.
BASIE: Listen I'm not trying to mock you Enz. You're an interesting person.
ENZO: No, you certainly are and that's totally OK. I just hope I don't mock people too much.
BASIE: It's not what I was trying to do and I'm sorry if that's how it came out.
ENZO: That is absolutely what you were trying to do and you needn't be sorry.
BASIE: I just don't know you anymore.
ENZO: So when you don't know someone you sit around with Horace Armenian and smoke reds and make mean-spirited jokes about people you don't get.
BASIE: I mostly just wondered what happened to make you change. And I wish I still knew you.
ENZO: To make me change?
BASIE: I'm assuming you've changed. I have.
ENZO: It's happening every second, of course I've changed. We're all evolving, it's a synthesis so why do you glorify any change I've undergone?
BASIE: Don't pretend as if you don't ask for it.
ENZO: Pfff...you know, I guess I do it's just not my intention in all sincerity. I'm just living and adapting in my way, lending myself to things...but I'm nothing more than confused and I think I might intend to stay that way if I can make it work, we'll see. I'm not jerking you around here with the shit talking either, I want to know what's happening for you.
BASIE: Well, I'm happy. I'll let that sink in for second. I've got things going on.
ENZO: I want to hear about them.
BASIE: Do you?
ENZO: Yea.
BASIE: Call me then. When you feel like lavender ice cream in the park, we'll do it.
ENZO: Cool but see I grew my hair out and fuck technology and I don't even carry a cellphone anymore I'm so hip so I can't call ya. But I'll send you a letter.

Fondly and with Divine Pride

2009-03-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

Coffea Novella (Attn. Industry Employers)

2009-02-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

the full-bodied bouquet drifts up with steam from the grounds, and as i sit here in the garden with humble cup of joe i am at once back in Venezuela with Nadine on her father's plantation, it's morning out behind the old farm house and i practice broken Spanish over borrowed school books overflowing with histories of oppression. i hadn't any direction then; what's more, i had no need for it, and i could spend all day praying in the dirt with honest work and then retire to the porch to sit into the sweeping evening as it fell dark and the crickets came out to heckle her while she read the books we lived to assay.

the coffee makes this all come back, and it's of note because i've hit some kind of wall and it's now necessary for me to stump for new employment opportunities, potentially in the coffee industry. projects are always underway but the hustler's life is by nature a fickle proposition. it's in my blood and i can't abandon it, but anxiety has got the best of me in this moment and i'm exploring the myth of stability, seeing if i can't start small again and get a new foothold to afford me the disorder i'll return to desire-disorder, of course, in the form of a natural order; the labels are criminal, and while here in America, i only desire to make an honest and sincere living on exciting terms.

so i could be a coffee man. i write furiously and submit to everything. i take silly jobs for bucks here and there as i always have. we're working in Johannesburg, but the politickins tricky and Marcus is getting booted from the home he's been put up in; we entertain the idea of me joining him, finding a cheap plot of land and building a small hut, living like dogs and pursuing our undertaking with an emphasis in the fertilizer business, and possibly exporting fruit on the side; means to an end, of course, while we got our grander projects off the ground. and i'd do it because i love him and because of what we could do together, but a hustler must be mindful of when the hustle becomes hollow; my only interest is survival at reasonable costs. if i can paraphrase, all i really want is to write and ramble and wrestle with my poetry, to have my garden, and to move at the forefront of history while maintaining direct contact with and reclaiming all that the new world is leaving behind. my feet are bare in the soil, and as i sip the bean i give myself license to enjoy one of the last veritable forms of peace i've known these days.

Texas Almond Blossoms

2009-02-07T13:10:00.000-08:00

february brings the Texas Almond tree to bloom and it's one of those things that saves my personal soul. blossoms flutter down with Hermes and lay white-pink petals all over the old brick barbecue Nonno built classic Italian mixed-brick and now with garden moss, the deepwood deck. the tree itself magnificent as well: grey-brown with deep lines etched into limbs, and then all my father's soul dangling off it, old lanterns, even an old percussion cymbal he found and with just a funky petite chain he'd given life to a birdbath. season creep is for real, for today it is SPRING in wintry February and things are awakening around here to new life after deep sleeps in cold soil. the squirrels steal the almonds but the blossoms cannot be detained, for they are ethereal and live for their transition from the heavens.

i am drinking rice milk from carton, grappa free now, washing down Dulouz's definitions. of a Poet, they are whimsical and formal dictionaries need to get their shit together. i've just spoken to Gypsy by telephone. beautiful thing i've done, ditching the mobile. life has positively improved since texting was beat. i speak to folks outside my sphere when i need to and i'm present when i do. yesterday, my father sat in the kitchen with old antenna radio on counter, listening for snow report.

ENZO: time travelin dude, i like it. but you know you can get that info in twenty seconds right here?
FATHER: yes. but i want to hear it.

first we had to see it then we could read it then hear it then read it and now apple is making videochat on iphone and so we'll be back around full circle only you're looking at an image and not the real being because it's not in front of you. that's a screen.

the four of us prepare and eat supper together here each night. after a rough row through some hideous storms, it's smooth now and we're a crackpot bunch learning to flow. Marc has gone back to Jozi and will send word when i should come join; he'd spent semester there and got ideas and support for a drinking establishment and in early stages i'd offered up some ideas and was invited to step onboard so now he's there working it with South African partner who as of yesterday evening has decided we should get into night vision goggle business instead.

and my mother is worried because i've taken up painting quite seriously (which of course means just doing it sincerely but never seriously at all) and she doesn't get the whole Enzo thing but maybe someday, so i just try to wash my dishes and keep things presentable for her so i can stay on til i make up my mind. but, and i ask this with utmost desperation, WHO was the dick who got it into the heads of people that a mind was meant to be made up? i want to stay here with my family and riff with them, learn from the Man because, as he reminded me yesterday when i lent him my Roman hat:

ENZO: cappello lookin buono, man.
FATHER: ain't the hat...

and knows i know the ending ("it's the MAN"). learn from Her too, all the tenderness i can, and from little Scout Finch and Bacchus too, learning HOW to learn from watching how she does it and when i take Bacchus for walks in the woods i realize he is walking me, lending me instincts lost amidst all the new features on the phone. i want to get down there with Marcus and see what we can't do with our blessings. i want to find that gypsy again and take back off on that ride with her. yea if i stayed here and carved out a nice little stationary life i could be happy and honorable, by my Fathers definition which is the top for me, content living simple full life tending to my trees. but there's a little girl off in Texas, i saw her once outside breakfast window, selling flowers on her tiptoes, fundraising for the funeral. i scribbled a napkin poem and paid her handsomely on my way to Mexico.

salsa dancin

2009-01-31T10:49:00.000-08:00

Kimberly's Blues

2008-12-14T14:43:00.000-08:00

Murphy's days consist of sitting in a white room. closet it sunk into one wall, deceitful treasure on shelves. window looks out on withering garden plot and empty lot surrounded by chain link fence. king james bible graces bedside table. tv blares opium into pipes smoke into lungs seed to egg. and that's Murphy now.

Murph got a tougher hand and was born into this life with a condition. we met in grade school and were good friends and then he kind of disappeared, and we all assumed the worst but then he got in touch one day years later. he was holed up, up North with some family, things had progressed and now it was just him in that room.

so many things have just never made any sense to me. if i've got something that somebody else don't, ain't that what it's for? it's no pity case, either. Murph has always been dear to me and a friend of mine, too. i see these flashes when i first walk in and i know he can transcend his state and still has the fire somewhere inside him. the world is big and crazy and i want to dig it all but so does Murph and i can help and still have some world left over for me. so i live for him because i know how he'd live if things were different. on my way home i stop for coffee at country bakery and talk up a cute little Italian girl. maybe i'll call her next time i'm up.

i get home back to the city and the sun has just sunk beneath the rooftops. the 9ers are playing the night game so i walk down to the liquor store, grab some Modelo and sit on the counter and talk to the liquor store man Alex. he's a kind loving soul behind gruff fiesty exterior and he sets the tone here, and it's an important spot on my map. the place is refuge, sanctuary of sorts for the working people of the neighborhood. Alex has it stocked with the American generics, and it's a place of the people, people taking what they're given and just trying to keep up. chairs sit outside on sidewalk on one side of the door; on the other is little glass vending machines and newspaper racks. right inside the door on the wall is a stamp machine, and beneath it is a lighter hanging from string attached to a nail. glass case of foul looking meats and cheeses is just beyond the counter, i'll admit i've only fantasized about enjoying a sandwich here but many actually do and it's all they need, made horrendously but with love. i read my paper and have a beer with Alex in the mornings, and we have a great system where i take what i need and pay when i can, and when i have cash i prepay a fat tab. this is a holy place for those the world is leaving behind, and i'm drawn to it, all these little stories and details no one is talking about. weathered painters saunter in to crack beers, women are equally at home. we sit here on sundays, a whole mangy group watching the game for all our different reasons. i've given up on most of these drugs and i've got my suspicions like Mr. William Rhoden does about it all, but American football is in my blood and a beautiful thing to me. so many of the great scribes loved it too, and their work reflects the beauty, genuine masculine expression with feminine sensibilities. these gladiators get to me because they combine that raw brutality with strategics, and that with grace and rhythm, and i can stand to have one more American vice.

after the game i walked good and drunk wet quiet streets to the bar where i was to meet Kimmy. Kimmy is an old friend and my purest love; we've always been a brilliant match but we're still just a little too afraid of each other, and so it's always a bit interesting and exciting. we go in and out of contact and hadn't spoken in a couple of years but now she was living in the city and it was all starting up again, this engine that sputters and never quite gets running. i found her in the dim joint at the bar and we hugged softly and deeply. she looked lovely in a loose gray sweater, jeans and tennies, but she was very thin and i felt all our struggles surfacing again. all i can do is love her the best i can; we'd been there before and i see now how foolish it is to try to convince her otherwise. i try never to contest another's insecurities, only to listen and support them in their struggle. we drank magaritas from oversized glasses with little umbrellas and went at it as we do with all the deepest stuff, but she told me to drink up because we were going to dinner with people she knew i'd like and so we drank and headed out. we were meeting her godparents for dinner, a sort of second set of grandparents i knew all about but had yet to meet. they were Norman and Norma; Kimmy called them the Norms. Norman is 86; Norma 91 or 92. he's a painter and loves taking people out to supper. Norma has early dementia. we walked and i bought a bouquet of white lilies and tied them with a plum ribbon i found slithering the sidewalk. we met them at a warm gastropub with great old smells worked into the wooden floor. i was taken back by their livelihood immediately, the style about them: his was not some frumpy old couple but a vibrant union of sparkling souls in twilight, embracing it fully. Norma made me stir, stomach churn, the moment i saw her-and just as naturally i fell in love with Kimmy on the first glance, i fell for Norma and knew she'd stay with me forever. her long hair, silver and grey and white, pulled back loosely. blue eyes still so bright, struggling to look out of the fog and see smooth seas in the eyes of anyone who would look calmly at her. the night is burning but this was a communion, and Norma will burn in my soul, gently bathing blue crystal, longing for someone to wait while she sorts the world out, and though we know it's a lost cause, she WILL sort it out, she will press on if only i keep my eyes on her and my voice steady and soft.

after dinner we said farewell and i promised Norma for the 9th time that i'd come by to see Norman's work and have lunch. Kimmy and i walked to her new place, a cute studio above a liquor store, all as it should be. we sat out on her fire escape and smoked and drank champagne and i put on some Oscar & Trio, our old favorite. half a bottle done she got suddenly excited and remembered she had one last surprise for me. we grabbed the bottle and she took me up to the roof, a brilliant roof nestled in, bricks and bright lights beneath the bridge, you could sit in shadows unseen on this roof and just watch it all. i talked to her about Norma and we looked at the stars and i think she understood that i'll always be that patient with her. we were drunk and a little cold and then we realize the door had shut and we were locked out there, keys down in the apartment. phones too, as it should be, and so we were left to camp together and we just talked madly and smoked until the sun came up. she always says she loves sunrises but i know she really just likes to watch night die in the morning.

Yosemite Falls

2008-11-25T22:24:00.001-08:00

autumn came to rescue that summer and i quit the show and moved back to my family's home in the suburbs. the whole famiglia lives here in close proximity and it's something i cherish, the tight Italian way of life maintained in America, in this place where cultures are washed away like sidewalk chalk by old men on cold mornings. it started with the natives, was all the rage during slavery, and the trick is still employed today if you're watching closely. i'd always had a curious and volatile relationship with my parents for a host of crazy reasons, but things had changed for me and i wanted to experience these people from a new place.

i'd spent my whole life puzzled by my father and his ephemeral way. he was unlike any other father i'd known living in this whitewashed joint, completely removed from the realities of middle-aged suburban family men. his fingers are green and his collar blue and he's always heard a different drummer and never hesitated to follow the beat, and amidst all the criticism he looked only to himself and the portrait of Thoreau staring down from his bedroom wall for approval. he wore ratty second-hand clothes, rode a bicycle everywhere. he never played golf, had never set foot in a gym and loathed them, and always looked brilliantly out of place at backyard barbecues.

when he arrived home from a hard days work he didn't kick off his shoes and flop down on the couch as i often saw in other households; he often didn't even come inside the house. he tromped through the gate into the backyard and spent every last ounce of daylight tending to his land, his garden, "the farm", as we called it. he'd always had a gentle way about him, copacetic almost, a feminine tone that eluded me. i'd struggled with it for most of my childhood; i was ashamed and wondered why he had to be so strange and disconnected, so absurdly out of touch. he had no ambition to be anything more than what he was, and once i saw his face wonder why his son was looking at him so sullenly. something happened to me around this autumn and i just got him, and i realized fully that this man who i'd been so ignorant of was everything i could ever hope to be, and if i could live like he does i might truly be happy.

my father was a cool Christian; he embodied Jesus' spirit and admired him as a man but had no interest in spreading any word. he had his convictions and big ideas but he never asked anyone to follow them or measure up to any standard. he lived his way and wanted me to catch on if and when i was ready. he understood that no matter how you slice it, you cannot teach people anything if they ain't ready to learn; they've got to learn it themselves, all in their own time. he had a profound connection to the earth, the physicality of the universe. he understood the idea of responsibility, that it's a birth rite and that we all must assume it for the environment we exist in. he used to drive us nuts with plastic milk jugs in the shower; he used them to save water while it heated up.

i take a late afternoon walk with him in the woods. he speaks my mind as he comments on the softness of the sun, how it sets a lovely tone, gentle beams through the trees. he points at the trees and quizzes me and teaches me about each one. it's just a stroll but the eagle scout carries with him a backpack full of fruit: apples of two varieties, oranges, guava, all from his trees in the yard. he eats as he walks, scraping every bite off skin and core just like the resourceful rats and collects stray trash and carries it home.

in the evening, we get in the car and drive to the southern city to see a concert in a large arena. my mother drives, i sit shotgun, and he and Scout sit in the back. he sits back there quietly thumbing through old magazines he saves in stacks in his garage. he tears out articles and images and saves them in other stacks to use them at a later time that he assures me will call for them. i realize now that this man is the epitome of an artist, that it was he who taught me that being an artist isn't about being a master of a medium or technically adept but seeing the world as flowing, a work of art that we all must contribute to with every breath. as far as particular mediums go, this is one of his: he rescues what others have given up on and gives it new life. most of the beautiful antique pieces in our home came from his scrounging through garbage heaps and dumpsters, and proximity didn't discourage him as i recall my grandmother telling me the story of a family dinner outing in Berkeley where he'd found an old chair and carried it to the restaurant, hid it in some bushes, and then retrieved it and took it back home with him on the BART train. we're losing touch but he represents the last hope and the artisans of physicality, sensuality-and what others ditched for the new and operative, he found a way to salvage and restore, even if his projects piled up and took decades.

we enter the city center and are slowed by the line of vehicles ahead of us. bright lights blaze and stretch down the road in perfect rows; uniformed stooges wave glowing wands and usher us forward. the arena looms up ahead and i can hear Hitler inside. my mother drives cautiously, upright; i notice i've sunken lower in my seat. we pass signs: PARKING AHEAD, LOT C, $20. my father and i object in harmony, swearing, beseeching her to break out of line before we're herded into the lot. there are residential blocks in the vicinity where we can park and use our legs for a few minutes.

when i was very small and just starting to put things together, i walked outside our house and heard the static noise from the nearby freeway. curious, i asked my father what it was. he told me it was Yosemite Falls. that's what he heard because anything else was crazy to him and it didn't hurt anyone. it might have been a lie, but i think he somehow knew what i was asking, that i knew the truth and was looking for more.

Dark Rooms

2008-11-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

Fred Rombus was in a musical in the city and i'd promised him i'd check it out and lend my usual vocal support in the audience. Fred and i go way back, and our mothers were close friends before Mrs. Rombus passed away in the summer of our 18th year. in her absence, my mother had stepped up to look over Fred; she planned to accompany me to the production, but at the last minute Nini and George popped over for vino, they are cousins but immediate famiglia live around the corner and we're always celebrating little joys together. so Nini and my father discuss strategy and scrupulousness of tomatoes he planted in their yard, George is a adventurer and newspaperman and he's always going off on exhaustive histories of every fucking thing you mention, and you genuinely cannot slip it by him, it's first rate and lovely...anyhow, point is that there was a party going on and so i was now attending alone. the show was at the jesuit university, which claims a campus of exquisite beauty. an old girlfriend of mine had been a student there and when i could bring myself over my silly antipathy for academic institutions i would spend days wandering the grounds and admiring the church, bewitching old buildings and Spanish architecture. Fred wasn't a student there, but his pal Zeke had been hired to direct the production and brought Fred on board as his lead actor. Zeke had recently feautured Fred in an original musical comedy in which an asteroid delivered a five-minute monologue of intense emotional and psychological deliberation; i had to excuse myself from the theatre on account of my hysteria.

the university campus consists of two separate campuses, old and new, divided by two residential blocks. the new campus hosts the church and several tasteful modern buildings; the old campus sits atop a hill overlooking the city and is composed of sublime Spanish architecture, old buildings that i imagined contained great rooms with beautiful wooden walls and decorative painted details and maybe even spirits roaming in the dark.

it could be called dumb luck, the way i met her, but that's the real way and when i stop dreaming and allow the flow it always trips me out and warms my soul. our meeting was a gentle collision in the natural progression: i was stumbling across the street finishing a smoke, lost and looking for someone i could ask to point me in the direction of the theatre. she was walking carefully in white heels and Grace Kelly duds down the hill from the grant staircase and we met at 90 degrees on the sidewalk and i inquired as to the location of the theatre. there was no cognition, no moment of overt holiness; i was late and lost and would have asked whatever creature was walking down that hill for directions, but it was her and she pointed out the theatre and said she was on her way there too, and so we walked together as the lights dove down behind buildings, all the way down to the bottom of the hill. we sat together at the back of the theatre and whispered throughout the show. she was 20, psych major, intelligent and conversational, and seemed to enjoy my psycho-analytical trash talking about the actresses on stage. her friends joined us, and at one time i looked over and all three had iphones out and in use and i thought about that, what the theatre was once and what it's become.

the show ended and i talked with Fred and Zeke and Fred's father who has always gotten his kick out of deadpanning about my earring or clothing or hairstyle and if i want to tell him anything about my sexuality. Mr. Rombus is a vintner and dignified asshole and i am unquestionably his favorite target; upon purchasing wine, i endure a mandatory 10 minutes of digs but he's a good man and makes a grounded wine. Fred had to close up shop and then was headed to a cast party and planned to bring me along, but i had an hour to kill before he'd be ready to go. she and i walked up the street under the palms to the grand staircase that led up to the main buildings on the old campus. we stopped on the staircase and sat on the marble railing and watched the students trickle down the steps in their friday outfits, clutching purses and bottles and talking excitedly. she was a genuine psych major, not simply one by default as is so often the case, and she meant it; she asserted herself in buoyant fashion, and i realized i couldn't objectify her as another ethereal beauty and instead had to meet her head on. she removed her heels and we ascended the staircase to whatever was above, the hill of palms keeping vigil over the city. she was from Missouri, of a proper and progressive democratic family. this city was a dream to her, and i told her how i wish i could experience it from that point of view. i'll never be able to dig this great funky city as i might if i could come to find it, roar into it out West from somewhere else.

we walked the grounds and she took me inside and i wondered out loud how much access the students had and how thoroughly we might be able to explore the shadowy quarters. she said the classrooms were open and i implored her to show me her favorite and she took me to a door on the fourth floor. inside was a lovely dark room, put imagination to shame, dark wood with a low beamed ceiling. paned windows looked out on the city to the East and the bright lights illuminated our chambers ever so delicately. two of the walls, those without windows, showcased elegant wooden cabinets with glass faces and hundreds of books, internal organs and insulation too. tables wound around the rectangular space and little wooden chairs rested behind them. we entered and closed the door. though she was 20, she carried with her an earnest confidence; she clearly didn't submit to the innocence her age afforded her, and she trusted that i was just another curious soul without the burden of direction (my first words to her were rather telling.)

we paced the room slowly and individually.

SHE: I spend so much time doing silly things. I buy things on sale, I fill out forms and watch people on television...
ME: You buy an iPhone, get hooked on it, stand in line when it breaks...
SHE: I take it to the theatre.

i had the slighted apprehension that she'd be yet another girl who didn't get me, this particular fondness for dark rooms and odd conversation, and that was put to rest by this exchange. we dedicate our lives to funny purposes and spend our time doing everything under the moon to distract us from these rooms in this context. being here with her in neutral territory, talking softy in the shadows...this was the most soulful of human experiences.