Fate and Friends

Bob Fass of WBAI New York City, Radio Unnameable

"...The presence of danger bestows genius upon the man of reason; it raises him, so to speak, above himself; in the man of imagination it inspires romantic notions, bold it is true, but frequently absurd."
--The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal

My craggy old spirit stared at the words above and recognized Self...romantic-minded cowboy-movie-nurtured...Roy Rogers...John Wayne...Superman...the Marines Build Men the whole bit...Save the world!...ha, ha!...don't get me started on "progress"...Save yourself first...please...and now my Chief informs me through an angel that I complain too much...to be "pro-active" and all that...listen more...whew...I send word via primitive computer that I'm exhausted...I'm relieved to see I'm not as romantic as I feared...I don't want to be romantic...don't want to be a hero or an antihero either...my magic books the secret words the key a sword in a stone a hand in the lake the mysterious well...assassins in pursuit...the recurring childhood dream of a stable with seven mighty stallions...each a different color for days of the week...the glass mountain the princess in white waiting patiently at the top...men riding hell-for-leather uphill horses hooves slipping on the glass...only I made it to the top each time...awoke when I reached the top never got the princess though...I dreamed this dream seven days in a row at age 12...who's a romantic?...at this point I'd settle for a dock on the bay...I want to be a realist like Paul Krassner who never loses his cool...not that I ever saw anyway...to see the world the way it is and satirize it to entertain & enlighten...what a talent Paul Krassner...I crack up everytime I hear him speak...the other night I was on the radio with Bob Fass and Jerelle Kraus former art editor Op-ed page NY Times thirteen years...went to Nicaragua with her on Abbie Hoffman's tour 1985...smart lady and only Bohemian on that old complicated newspaper...she's got a book...All the Art That's Fit to Print (And Some That Wasn't) in The New York Times... free blog ad Jerelle...great-looking book!



Jerelle Kraus, 13 years Op-Ed art editor for the NY Times, and a helluva good dancer.



Bill Propp, longtime radio engineer at WBAI who always engineers Bob's program; an affable and knowledgeable guy.



Live musicians often play on Bob's program. Live music once played on most stations in America, and Bob's show is one of the last formats for it.

And now the news: I was nearly homeless in this merciless city last week...one night broke on the street no place to lay my weary head...walked by many old haunts...coffeeshops restaurants bars I used to eat and drink in regularly...my old apartment at 112 Macdougal Street...they close the parks at 10...took down streetside benches so no place for homeless to rest...stopping on stoops to write by streetlight...cops cruising past looking twice...lucky I'm clean & old with short white hair or they'd have me at Riker's Island...Welcome to Hell...walked till dawn when they opened parks...collapsed on grass by Hudson River but couldn't sleep...68 years old and walking the streets of New York dead broke...feeling like a sorry piece of shit...waiting I'm always waiting...finally I have a glimpse into how to write and how many days left to me?...hurt lower back causing me to walk tilted to the right...ha, ha!...I swear to God I don't know why I'm laughing but I am...I see myself tragi-comic old clown with head detached floating tilted painfully in seamless reality all of a piece...absolutely nothing accomplished worth noting in all this time...fate do you believe in fate?...I do.

Finally a nephew-by-marriage bailed me out of my own stupidity...now I'm trying to get a hack license again after 22 years not-driving taxi here...everything different...haven't seen a white driver yet...credit card machines in cabs now...they've tightened the rules made the damned thing more expensive and complicated...nearly $500 to get one!...drug test...medical exam...school!...imagine that...school...six years I drove and now I need to go to school!...$175 for that...went to change my Florida license for NY chauffer's license...suddenly a word PROHIBITED comes up on screen...what's this?...clerk doesn't get it...makes a call...says it will be cleared up Monday..."an overnighter" she said...Friday to Monday really...maybe I signed too many petitions attended too many demonstrations...somebody had to do it...Homeland Insecurity probably...if I get it tomorrow I hope to be driving again in little more than a week...back to it...have to refresh memory of streets and neighborhoods...buy a good map...Taxi Driver Guide...had to change Social Security card to read same as driver's license...met a lady in SS office who tells me she worked 40 years and can't find job...can't pay rent...overqualified for everything...jobs falling away like leaves to a fire...I felt sorry for her...walking the streets would kill her...and these rich bastards don't care...she is only a statistic to them.

I want to live in Brooklyn this time..."liberated territory" Bob said...okay I'm liberated now all I need is an apartment or a room a job and a better income...does this sound like griping?...it's not...I am so grateful for friends...grateful to God for my life...for every breath I ever took for everything that ever went wrong...or I wouldn't be right here nine stories above First Avenue...drinking coffee letting back muscles relax...watching stream of traffic descending slowly from upper level of Queensboro Bridge like I did a thousand times...seeing my old self driving one of those yellow taxis...I actually used to look up and see this window from there...hoping I can do it again...not going back to New Orleans except for the play in October...I love New Orleans but love New York more...happy to be back here...I have a son in New Jersey...he's a lot like me which doesn't make me glad...a hermit who lives in his head...how people manage to live better I haven't a clue...Fate yes I believe in Fate...what else can I think?...even I couldn't have written this scenario...but thanks for good friends and Fate too.



Bob Fass, originator of Free Speech radio and the 10-person conference call-in; founder with Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin & Paul Krassner of the Yippies; 50-years on WBAI-FM in New York, 99.5 FM; and my very good old friend.

Dangerous Questions

I walked into Union Square and couldn’t help but notice the exposed and ample breasts of a young woman in pink sitting on one of the low steps leading toward the subway. Of course I glanced at them in passing--they were lovely to me-- and the woman with a rather plain square face looked away from me as she probably looked away from any man who noticed them. All but her nipples were showing. I stood behind her a few moments, and then followed my inspiration.

I sat beside her but not too close.

“Excuse me,” I ventured. “I don’t mean to intrude on your thoughts or to bother you, and I will leave immediately if you tell me to, but may I ask you a question?”

She looked at my aged and wrinkled face for a moment and answered affirmatively.

“I’m a writer (I showed her the notebook of scribbling I always carry,) and an amateur actor. Not long ago I expressed to the director of a play I’m in a wish that I were a woman. I had reasons for this, but I won’t go into them. This young woman, very talented and perceptive, suggested that I try writing something from a woman’s viewpoint. So I attempted it.”

She looked at me in silence.

“I took the easiest way and wrote myself a letter from a fictional woman, and sent it to her for inspection, because I trust her judgment in matters of art and talent. She’s much-better-educated than I am and has a record of accomplishment in the arts that I will probably never attain at my age. I suppose she might be too busy to get into it. It's an emotion-laden topic between men and women, or maybe she's too circumspect and diplomatic to criticize it directly. It was very difficult to write. When I was writing it, I realized for the first time that I hardly have an inkling of what goes through women’s minds.”

“I see,” she said, nodding for me to continue.

“I want to ask you something, because I really want to know, and I beg you not to be offended, because I mean no offense. I just want to understand, okay?”

“Okay.”

“How do you feel,” I asked, “when you see a man on the street or anywhere looking at your breasts?”

“I don’t like it,” she said emphatically.

“But you are showing them. Almost all of them. I saw them from 25 feet away. You must be aware of how much you are showing.”

“I don’t like it when they stare.”

“What if they don’t stare,”I continued, "but merely look for a moment as I did, as probably every man passing here does?”


“I still don’t like it,” she said.

She pulled her dress up to cover them.

“Then why are you showing them? You must know that they are attractive to most men, that many men are sexually-aroused by them.”

“I just don’t like it,” she said with an edge to her voice, showing me that I was stepping over a line of some sort.

“Maybe you just haven’t thought about it,” I said.

“I just don’t like it,” she said again.

I thanked her and excused myself in rising. She stared toward Irving Place with an angry scowl.

I wanted to ask her if she was angry with men before they looked at her breasts, or after, but didn’t. I have my own theory of course, formed during a lifetime of receiving scowls and hostile, disgusted looks from (white) women, who dispense such looks even if I am only looking at their faces. I got these looks even when I was young, muscular, sexy I guess, and certainly much-better looking than I am now.

I say “white women,” because my life’s experience has been mostly with women of my own race, which is natural, because we like first the people and things we most-identify with. Few black, Latina, or other women of color have scowled at me for looking, and I look at them too, because I find most females of any race attractive. Of course there are some women who are pleased to have their attributes admired, who even smile when they notice you admiring them.

I wanted to suggest but didn’t that she might dress so in order to have a reason to express her disgust and anger at (white) men. I say “white men,” because I have seen women give me such a look, then a moment later smile fawningly and nearly grovel when a strange black man said something like, “Hey, baby, that’s a real nice ass you got there.”

You figure it out.

I’m working on it.

Wind in My Hair

Cellphone America give me a break…I’m smoking at table outside Rue de la Course…three guys talking loud on cellphones…I’m almost surrounded!...sounds like a telephone exchange…why do people talk louder in public than normally?...it’s as if they want you to hear their business and private conversations…look what a bigshot I am...or maybe they do it at office and home too…I talk lower on my Sprint…its delicate audio is sensitive to breath…tough though…mine hit the floor a few times no damage…dudes play with cellphones like they play with themselves…some dudes staring at their palms for hours now...you can play Internet on them...sure I love the new means of communication…Even though it is driving me to the poorhouse!...this Air Card duns me 60 bucks a month...I spent $300 fixing this blue-screened piece of shit $250 laptop computer...God bless it...it’s the lack of phone etiquette...Manners...that I deplore…yes deplore…don’t think I’ve used that word in awhile…detest is my regular verb…neither has any effect on changing a damned thing…did you read that Mike Havenar deplored that and detested this?...who’s Mike Havenar?...semi-homeless dude who writes in coffee houses…oh…tell him noisy traffic on Magazine Street and others nearby shouting on cellphones is the reason…NEXT!…I love idea of bringing back empty telephone booths for cellphone privacy…and to protect us from public histrionics…air condition the booths hell put a TV in 'em that’ll do the trick…bored with the conversation…nobody answering their pestiferous rings…old lady nagging them to death...they can tune in their favorite mindless television show…life as a cartoon…a caricature…funny and livable…and the real scoop the real news up to date all that fits fair and balanced...no mention of the fire hose of puke when you're shot in the stomach...the way explosives rend the body not along anatomical lines.




Early evening cooldown on dirty New Orleans sidewalk...cars passing zoom! zoom! zoom!…bus…ZOOOOOM!…not a pigeon in sight they must be exhausted by heat too...this one pigeon comes here every day this time and cleans up...they ought to pay her...I watch her 15 minutes at a time some days...she gets every crumb...strutty little chick she knows I'm watching her...she comes closer and closer giving me a questioning look...102 degrees today hottest one so far …outrageous-looking woman in 30’s firm suntanned legs focused eyes challenging cleavage intriguing looks...finally gets up and leaves…sigh…I had hopes…but I never made a move...keep hope alive…Ha! Ha! Ha!...lotsa luck Mike…five hours and 22 minutes to midnight...Payday!…Social Security pittance hits the bank I’m waiting with the magic card…spend $300 in two days and hit the road for NYC...I'm hyped...listening to Mr. Tambourine Man..."I'm ready to go anywhere/I'm ready for to fade/into my own parade..."



God You know I will be so glad to get away from hot-assed New Orleans for more than a month…On the road again!...love it...leaving 10 days early taking my time…easier on old engine…stop at Jim’s in Georgia spend some time repairing & re-organizing van…it’s a mess…IT STINKS…stuff I must buy for trip things I must do: a tire...grease job...oil change...replace two belts...anti-freeze ...maybe take thermostat out who needs it New York in the summer?...run cooler without it...maybe re-pack wheel bearings too…fix broken starboard tail light lens…wash the sucker so cops don’t think I’m poor…they stop poor people in dirty-looking old cars...New Orleans cops don't seem to notice...knock on wood...that I'm driving oldest van in the city…they know the poor can’t afford frigging insurance and pull them over to check…a few years ago New Mexico announced it had 20,000 citizens driving without it…I'm not saying I don't have it...I might and might not...depends whether Obama signed my pardon...maybe on return trip stop to see Ralph in West Virginia...Wes in Tennessee…Ralph Pack my first amtrack crew chief…we made Great Lakes cruise together 1960…opened St. Lawrence Seaway…reinforced marine battalion… Sixth Marines…made simulated-combat landings on beaches on four of five Great Lakes…not Superior…first time at sea…Refused to get seasick too humiliating…everybody was throwing up…I’m not a joiner…ran up ladder pushed open forbidden hatch cover...watched the heaving ocean and giant waves raging over entire deck of shallow-draft LST...(Landing Ship Tank)...bobbing on ocean like cork-bobber over a hungry trout…watched the waves and troughs...got a feel for which way ship pitched…anticipated the breakers...bow hitting the next big wave like a giant iron mallet...BLAM!...whole ship shuddering like being rammed by Moby Dick...found the horizon…never got seasick in four years on various ships in the Crotch…see what an extraordinary Irish landlubber I was…showed Joey same trick on our 11-day honeymoon on three-masted windjammer The Flying Cloud II...around the Windward Islands…Martinique to Grenada & back...she didn’t get sick either…I love being on the ocean hate being in it…there are things down there that will eat you!...no thanks…I’m at the top of food chain…I eat them.



Great Lakes tour was something else… we lost a guy overboard entering the Bay of St. Lawrence...by the time they discovered it it was useless to go back for him...water too cold...hypothermia in minutes and dead...we stopped off Quebec City and yelled & waved at the motorboaters...they offered to throw up beer...Sgt. Marino said hell no...no alcohol on a Navy ship...beautiful city I always meant to go back but never did...sailed slowly through the Thousand Islands...extraordinary!...great homes I'd love to live there...President Eisenhower & Queen Elizabeth my favorite queen cut ribbon opening long-dreamed-of ocean-going ship route to continental interior…our little ship so far back from the festivities we didn't see or hear the bigshots...cruisers & destroyers first...we went through locks...first landing we made at Montrose Beach Chicago Fourth of July...million people there they said…when we came off ship loaded with savage marines armed with blanks to defend our way of life the beach looked like multi-colored rocks…getting closer we saw they were colorful clothes…so many people!…never before seen…years later I became addicted to huge crowds in antiwar demonstrations…seems like everybody knows each other…ha, ha!...we do!…and we know we don’t want this fucking war is what! which fucking war?...none of your fucking wars.



Marines charged ashore and The Blue Angels the Marine Corps flying team four bloody fighter jets roared over my head when I was standing atop tractor un-screwing radio antennae.



I swear I felt their heat…scared the shit out of me...I nearly fell off the thing…close air support...small TNT charges going off simulating mines…BOOM! BOOM! POW! POW! rifles machine guns…CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!...RAT-A-TAT-TAT… the works!…crowd loved it…”this thing she called a good old-fashioned war” (Dylan--John Brown)…here’s a strange thing…when we charged ashore some nut charged us...a civilian…cops grabbed him I watched the whole thing…38 years later I met the guy at the Triangle Club in Las Vegas...big AA club where I first seriously tried to stop drinking…nine months dry…I told him about the cruise he told me he was there I said oh yeah?...he said yeah I charged out there to meet you guys...I was drunk as hell and the cops arrested me…man I couldn’t believe it…it still seems impossible to me…but it was him all right…I saw it all right…our memories coincided…not a coincidence either…he helped me out with good advice some tricks & verbal support…hadn’t had a drink in 20 years…but I fell off the wagon anyway and sex was the trigger of course…he had been a private pilot...flew a small Cessena drunk and engine quit…he’d forgotten to gas up…landed in middle of a town...nobody hurt the plane towed away with one broken wing…lucky he didn't get arrested for FWI...(Flying While Intoxicated)...Something up there liked him…maybe kept him around so he could help me…It's all connected...he did his best but I didn’t.



On June 15th I celebrated my third year without alcohol...finally I did something right...anybody badmouthing AA to me I'll set 'em straight...of course it doesn't work for you unless you have had your last drink and want to quit...you gotta hit your bottom...thank God my bottom was higher than it might have been...pure self-disgust at wasting my only life...see I always worked...I might have been living in a van but I worked and had enough money to stay clean busy and out of jail...I might drink every night one two or 10...I wrote in bars...I wrote in so many bars...got up next day went to work and sometimes went weeks without booze...sooner or later though I'd drink too much and something bad would happen...I'd get in a fight or an argument lose a friend or a job or tools or fall and break my ass...if I drank one shot of Brandy & Benedictine after a few beers I inevitably broke out in handcuffs...DUI!...I'd be flying down the road feeling great and whup! whup! whup! that old siren song of confinement...jail...cops...handcuffs...judges...lawyers...fines...higher insurance rates...feeling bad about myself...disgusted...losing friends like dandruff...depressed...quitting jobs...ah to hell with it...the writing isn't going anywhere I have no talent...couldn't focus...I'm going to Las Vegas...Los Angeles...San Francisco...New York...Texas...New Mexico...Arizona...Las Vegas...Los Angeles...Hermosa Beach...Minnesota...San Francisco...Eureka...Mexico...Nicaragua...Canada...Michigan...Seattle...Portland...Willow Creek...Washington DC...Durango...Redlands...Corpus Christi...Charlotte...Orlando...Clearwater...Miami...you get the idea...I'm sure I told you somewhere back there in this blog...those bitter nights in all kinds of weather...listen I hate to go back and read it I'll tell you why...I am an endless re-writer...I'll start fucking with it and it just isn't worth it...I don't have the time the boneyard is calling...I'm putting this stuff out there for your perusal...this is it!...this is the real thing baby the raw resources take it or leave it...I'm Kerouwhacking you with Celineiquies...I'm not changing a thing unless I find it's a lie or worse THE TRUTH...ha, ha!...maybe I'll fix some grammar or move my three little dots around...if something is too bad I'll just delete in in pure embarrassment hope nobody saved it...piece what piece?...a little truth is a good thing don't you think...watch out though...you can say too much and people get disgusted...they don't want to see your innards..I know I don't...on the other hand I couldn't write like this if Kerouac and Celine hadn't shown theirs...



Celine's heartless logic from false premises...dumb decisions...selfish belly brilliant mind generous heart profane thoughts sordid upbringing his criminal attachments...his great medical knowledge fantastic literary contributions and true confessions...Hilarious!...heartbreaking too.



Kerouac laying open his sad generous alcoholic compassionate French-American heart writing 24-hours at a time on bennies...crying howling laughing to great jazz...Bombed on weed and benzedrine...writing a whole book on a roll of teletype paper!...ha, ha!...describing everything in sight knowing it was disappearing forever right before his eyes...get it all down it'll never be seen again...don't let that old railcar diner with worn countertop and plate of melty butter get away...nobody else described Joan Crawford making a movie in the rain and how it made him feel...Visions of Cody my favorite pioneering Kerouac book...tell the truth and let them do what they want with it they will anyway...I wish there was some money in it though...hard to sustain this expensive lifestyle with simple unpaid literary piracy...poor Jack slugging cheap wine hanging with winos in the alley by City Lights...goodbye cruel liver...ah Jack I wish I'd known you...I might've told you a thing or two...you didn't have to die sad & lonely your tongue big as a shoe...it was the booze bub...poison for guys like you and me...should have stayed with the weed Jack.



Well the money came in...I'm sitting in my writing place 3:59 AM with $300 in my pocket and some eggs & grits in my belly that weren't cooked right...but the pain in my side is gone...I should go to bed but don't feel like it...I don't like to sleep...my mother used to say "Mike doesn't want to go to bed because he doesn't want to miss anything"...she nailed me...to a cross...but I got off...ha, ha!...took awhile but I am actually feeling real good for a change...things are looking up...I got this beautiful...job...waiting for me in New York...can't wait to get to it...and the road...oh the blessed open road...the winds of change blowing on my old white hair...same old roads...same old hair...a different Mike.

Truckin' With Anxiety

Canal Street in New Orleans looking toward Metairie

I Don't know exactly what made me want to be a writer. Actually as you know I wanted to be a drummer. Music got to me first. I was too self-conscious to dance well but I tried. I could keep time to the music though. Beating on that ironing board with sticks put me in a different world. I could snap fingers or tap feet exactly in time and still can...wondered why others couldn't stay on the beat...aren't you listening?...but shit happened as you know and I became a writer instead...no cracks please.

Later after reading myself blind I found authors I admired like Maxim Gorky...his roots were in poverty and so were mine...he had a social conscience and so do I...you can say his writing was political to which I say so what...one of the greatest writers to me...but long before Gorky I read stuff that was given me...everything good I ever read had some effect on me...Gorky inspired me to keep at it...if he could do it so could I.



Maxim Gorky "the stormy petrel" of the Russian Revolution...this bird flies in front of the storm

First writers I read my mother gave me: Richard Haliburton's Book of Marvels probably awoke planetary curiosity mid-wifing my wanderlust...rich guy who had nothing to do but travel...hit all the wonders of the world...swam the Panama Canal...old black and white photos he took of distant places still fresh in my mind...grainy photos of pyramids...drawings of ancient vanished marvels...forbidding photo of bottomless pool where Mayan priests flung their victims only now getting attention from modern historians...she gave me Dickens' David Copperfield...I was too young to understand & language too difficult then...Treasure Island Robinson Crusoe excellent...who can forget that story...Tom Sawyer then Huckleberry Finn...Ha, ha! I dug Huck but it was two decades before I realized--someone had to point it out--that it was pioneering anti-racist novel. Of course schools didn't teach it like that...come to think of it none of my schools had us read Huckleberry Finn...slavery what slavery...being a southern white boy I wasn't informed-enough to get it...not taught critical thinking how could I know...still too young to understand racist America...didn't have a clue until Ike sent the Airborne to Little Rock to enforce integration order from Supreme Court...Huck and Jim only an exciting adventure down the Mississippi River...any boy's dream of freedom and defiance of authority ending with vindication of masculine heroism and freedom...terrific Twainian storytelling...Huck wins his manhood and Jim doesn't have to be a slave anymore... I didn't see that Jim had won his manhood too...never saw one film or television production of Huckleberry Finn that I liked...they all fell short...Huck seemed to me older...Tom was a crafty exploitative and self-interested little bastard...destined to be rich...Jim was a grown man..deeper than any Uncle Remus...he was in a world of pain...slapped his little boy upside his head not realizing kid was deaf...profound testimony to worst human tragedy...the old lady was a well-intentioned religious maniac in a country still full of 'em...Huck's father was more evil than he looked...rapist and murderer for sure...the funniest guy in the book was the fat man pretending to be the Lost Dauphin of France!!..ha, ha!...what a character!...and Huckleberry...Twain's gravediggers now say Huck was modeled on a black kid...I can believe it.

I recall that once...aggrieved over my mom's inebriation late one night, ...watching her stumble over a chair and bounce off a wall...bruises all over her legs...seeing that she was unhappy and feeling her pain...I asked what she wanted to do..."I want to write," she said...she was about 35 then...it surprised me but it shouldn't have because she read so much--both she and Sidney did...She read in the mornings and afternoons while he was at work...they read in bed together...did she want to write because she was unhappy?...perhaps she was unhappy because she wanted to write!...or did she think it was an easy way to make a living?...I actually did!...did she ever try to write?...I don't know...did she want to be famous?...people think to be famous is to be rich...I don't buy it...but frankly being rich never entered my mind...I seemed to know from early on that I would never be wealthy...never even looked at the golden ring...didn't even notice it as the countryside spun round the merry go 'round...why waste energy trying to grab it?...it's only a gold ring...realized too late I should have tried...I might have more to pawn.



All this might have been mine...

What rang her bell?...same thing that rings all our bells...in literature: a good story...one that transports you to another world...perhaps even a world where things make sense and come out right...this woman my mother Mickey Lee...pretty as all get-out...with an education even worse than mine...like millions others had survived the worst war in history of the world...simply by being born in the right place at the right time...she wasn't meant to be incinerated in Dresden or nuked in Hiroshima...she was meant to work in the maze of atom bomb factory...didn't even know they were making a bomb hardly anybody did...told me when the news of Hiroshima spread at Oak Ridge some women broke down crying to learn of the death of so many...and they had had a hand in it...that despite ingrained racism & hatred of Japanese they felt sympathy for the enemy...my mother was always torn between two extremes...on the one hand she preached "toleration"...when she was loaded she could easily say "Kick their teeth out"...her sober self was kinder...see she was good and people are good...it breaks my heart to know that sometimes...but nobody was giving out numbers then were they...it was years before we knew how many fried...Jesus Christ an atom bomb...blow the whole fucking world up why don't you morons.



Sid's books were technical and over my head...but he had large leatherbound volumes of maps chronologies text and pictures of the recent war...including a large book regretfully vanished of his combat engineer regiment put together at end of the war...I've even forgotten the regimental number...I pored through books about WW II before I was out of eighth grade...suppose other kids were doing the same at home...he had a biography of Brahms and about 20 book-albums of classical music on 78rpms...I heard most popular classical music before I got to Mrs. Wagner's 8th grade music class...Handel...Bach...Wagner...Beethoven...Vivaldi...Carmen...Grieg's Pier Gyntt Suite...Anitra's Dance...Aida...In the Hall of the Mountain King!...The Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofe...Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue...actually a lovely blue vinyl 78...I'd heard the operas but didn't know the stories until Mrs. Wagner's class...I don't know who turned Sid Havenar on to all that music...he was a third-grade dropout...he also had albums of military music...the Army Marching Band...When Those Caissons Come Rolling Along!...the Marine Corps Band...From the Halls of Montezuma...(The Marine Corps Hymm)...I knew that one long before drill instructors made me sing it at Parris Island...still stirs my heart though I know war is a bucket of shit.

I read the books she kept by their bed...detective novels, thrillers, The Day of the Triffids, my first encounter with science-fiction ...Mickey Spillane, Richard S. Prather, Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, and the cowboy books of Louis L'Amour...I read a number of her bedside novels of danger adventure and romance...I didn't understand all the words but managed to follow the stories...once when I was ill home from school lying in her bigger bed--it was cozier and special somehow--she caught me reading "I, the Jury" by Mickey Spillane...Spillane's best creation...Mike Hammer...a hard-boiled private eye who shot or beat bad guys before breakfast and one before bedtime...he made love to women nearly every day...the sex scenes were suggestive not pornographic...women were always after him...he had to slap a few of them around and occasionally shoot one too but they all deserved it...sometimes it was the only way to get real information...Hammer was fearless...kicked ass all over New York...loyalty was everything to him and he was above all loyal...tough guys were afraid of him or soon would be...yes I liked this guy...he appealed to me...bullies were tormenting me then...nobody beat Mike Hammer and God help you if you imperiled his secretary Velma...when angered he was capable of vast vengeance...Men shied away just looking at his pissed-off face.

I see it now...tough guy...keeps bullies away...I suppose I assumed an attitude of toughness because I wasn't tough...I was vulnerable and prone to stumble over my words in a verbal confrontation of any sort...fear I guess...my mouth would run away with me and I'd say too much or too little or say it all wrong...I liked Mike Hammer who had no fear...later I liked Hemingway because he did...because he confessed it and fought it...Hemingway a counterphobic like me...went toward what he was afraid of because the anxiety was worse than what he feared...now they are paying attention to bullies and their victims...seems the victims have a propensity to suicide later on...tell me about it...makes you feel bad about yourself...did the great man Hemingway get bullied around in grade school?...hard to imagine...I wanted to be cool as a cat on a glass table but I seldom ever was.




My mother bit her lip seeing me reading it and said "I'm not sure you should be reading that"...I re-assured her and she let it go...now I think maybe she was right...I shouldn't have been reading at age 11 or 12 about a private detective who would shoot a woman in her privates (she had done it to his friend)...I wish she had taken it away from me...asserted her rights over me...but she had turned me over to Sidney not feeling up to the task and probably feeling guilty too...I was shocked to learn Sidney was my boss...I had thought she was...I see now it depressed me and made me anxious...I didn't even know this man and he was in charge of me.

Suddenly I realized not long ago that despite my life-long sense of myself as cool calm collected and unafraid...I've been anxious all my life...I don't look it...but to be honest I've been anxious about failing at this and that...anxious about survival...anxious about women...anxious about work...anxious about war...anxious about homeless...friendless...bruised so often I built a false front...THE STONEWORKS...I buried anxiety and thought mine was a heroic way of life...I see now that most of my anxiety was due to being male...the unsung curses of owning a cock... I think it must be different for females...I know we both have anxieties but I think ours are different...we men must pass the same tests again and again always with the chance of failure negating all past proofs of manhood...a challenge a day keeps confidence away...men expected to perform...and not only sexually...even as boys we must achieve in competition with other boys...we must acquire skills...pass tests of strength endurance and bravery..and other tests and trials....later we must be good lovers...we must be active...without male interest nothing happens...the female can just lie there and pretend to like it or not...a guy has to want it...one premature ejaculation or failed boner can ruin your sex life if word gets around...it probably did...who knows what they tell each other?

Males and females start life identifying with earliest nurturer the one with the food...girls never have to differentiate but boys do as they become aware of their separateness...girls learn by virtue of their biology they will be women...if they only passively wait they likely will be mothers..every event in their maturation...menstruation...defloration...childbirth...even rape affirms her femaleness.

But a boy can never be certain he will be a man...qualifications vague and unwritten...tests for manhood are more than physical...tests are many and ongoing throughout a male life...while a mother usually remains emotionally close to her daughter emotional and intellectual gaps between mothers and sons widen and deepen because he must be different than she a female...the kicker is that fathers are usually absent in one way or another...many sons have no certain model to imitate--except one of distant uninvolved dad that they will be too with their own children later...like me...without being any sort of expert it still seems to me schools should be teaching character...with examples in history...from Pericles to Obama...honor...from Achilles to Eisenhower...selflessness...from Jesus to Mother Theresa...and all the world's religions in enough depth to crack the brittle armor of self-righteous religious intolerance...every major religion has a Bible which makes sense from that viewpoint...you don't have the only one you know...yours isn't the only one with beauty sense and good instructions...how is someone going to understand what a principle is without the example of Socrates?...but they never mentioned him in my school...teachers underestimate intelligence of students a lot...even if they know they aren't telling...then some jerk in the PTA knowing nothing of Socrates or Huey P. Long is also drawing up the curricula that lesson plans come from...teachers hamstrung by rules written by know-nothings much of their ignorance inspired by the likes of Rush Lamebrain and the anti-intellectual cowardice he represents...anti-intellectualism runs deep as Lake Baikal in American society...crippling.

No one calls a woman a "coward" if she declines a challenge to fight...such challenges rare and few...she's not expected to fight...it would be an aberration if she did..."unladylike"... If its a fight it's the men who do it...especially to protect or avenge her according to the Romantics and human commonsense...a boy or man declining a challenge to fight...or worse runs from it...can be branded a coward for all life with resultant loss of reputation self-esteem and even income...even the intellectual ivy-leaguer nurtured in a genteel supportive environment must avoid reputation as an intellectual or moral coward...neither can any male be a wimp a pussy or a softie or he will be branded homosexual whether he is or not...this happened to me Kenner High School 9th grade late fifties...new boy in school I didn't want to fight anybody...refused...called a queer...some guys convinced I was a dicksucker offered me to suck theirs...last thing in the world I wanted...I see now if I had kicked them in the balls they would have known I was an all right guy...they all joined the police force later...this another anxiety all boys must endure...implication that gay men can never achieve true manhood...therefore boys must scorn it and sometimes verbally or even physically abuse gentler boys who may or not have grown into homosexuality later...to prove his own heterosexuality...some males so anxious at achieving & maintaining manhood are so afraid of this they must prove every day they aren't attracted to males...not gay...once I described to Billy and Hooter in Colorado a kid I knew once as a "good-looking black kid"...they hooted with derision..."a good-looking black kid!"...the concept was strange...they were convinced without saying so that I was gay...oh well so what drop dead racist homophobic pigs...in fact I think Billy shot himself or went back to prison by now...satellite photo shows his place has been razed...maybe he got smart and sold out...maybe he found the murdered man with the diamonds and gold...I'll write the story of Wild Bill Norman someday.

I never had that problem, because I had contact with homosexuals from an early age... my mom was a member of the Little Theater of Lake Charles...she knew most of the principals...many of the actors technicians and producers were themselves gay or lesbian...I knew some of them once...she took me to some plays and post-peformance parties and I got the picture...Sidney was tolerant...amused...though I didn't see why then...my stepfather was a gentle man with a big mind...he was an FDR liberal who daringly called himself a "socialist"...to provoke my mom's gentle "perish the thought"...he teased her now and then...I saw that homosexuality was part of the Little Theater and by implication of other arts too...in conversation gays were certainly smarter and more-amusing...Of course I was a boy and who knows what they really wanted...when I was 15 the only place in New Orleans where I could be reasonably certain to buy beer was The Cafe of the Lafitte Exiles on Bourbon Street...probably the oldest gay bar in the South...numerous mornings I saw the street greet the sunlight sitting there with older guys who made stiumlating and funny conversation...sometimes about literture and the arts...some were painters and writers...I liked them but didn't want sex and nobody asked either...this was the fifties and early sixties...if they went for boys nobody said so...they were very respectful of me...I still go there (for a Coke) now and then...one of the lesser anxieties in my life...in fact I was proud it didn't bother me...the way I was proud later that black men walking streets with arms around white women didn't bother me either...outraged some of my friends though...I used to laugh at them...Jesus Christ I'd say...of all the things to worry about the color of a man's skin...I enjoyed taunting them...lost a few potential friends this way & still don't care.

But it is only more self-delusion for me to say I'm not anxious about anything...I am probably anxious about so many things...probably apparent to everyone but me...I try to keep my cool but been known to blow it.



Mt. St. Helens blowing it

Someone on Facebook said loneliness was the opposite of love...I say indifference is...someone else said fear was opposite & another said fear "predicates loneliness"...but loneliness can be from other reasons...and like I said before what do I really know about love?

Ishi "the last of his tribe" was lonely because no one spoke his language anymore...



He had no fear and neither was he indifferent but he was unquestionably lonely...there are many reasons for loneliness...a person can be a part of a hated minority...a deformed person and the blind the deaf or an ex-prisoner a felon shunned by society...the old are lonely because everyone they knew is dead or dying...some are lonely from lack of a loving relationship...many reasons for loneliness which also can be penultimate selfishness...tell the deprived to be selfless though...forget your troubles come on get happy helping others...loneliness also a battlement on a hilltop surrounded by a moat of suspicion in the paralyzed forest...I'm lonely here afraid to come out I might start screaming...you don't know me...you don't know the troubles I've seen...if I ever let it all come out you'd call the wagon...but no matter how this sounds I'm okay now.

Osama Sucks

This guy behind the counter after midnight in the convenience store I use because it’s convenient is a bad duck…stolid and solid quiet as a sniper straight as a soldier...an Arab Malcolm X (he wishes)...what he imagines is superior dignity trying to stand like a general but Abbie did it better...ramrod straight Abbie Hoffman stood...and looking like he’s only waiting for orders to jump across the counter and cut my throat…a Palestinian who tells people when he tells them anything that he’s Egyptian…maybe his family took refuge from the dumbass Israelis in Egypt...I knew better having actually looked at Egyptians with a curious eye…another guy confirms he’s Palestinian…well if you know me you know I support them…I go in and out of the place almost everyday...their cigarettes are cheaper and nobody minds me using the bathroom…I have taken actual Superman-quick baths there standing naked ridding body of work grime…sanding dust paint caulk glue…I have this fucked-up lifestyle down to a science…they never know… I leave bathroom cleaner than it was…I spend a lot of money there…cigarettes gas candy Fritos coffee gloves and those damned Starbucks frappacinos I was addicted to…one month in NJ a few years ago I spent $129 on them!...saved the receipts...dampened my enthusiasm…anyway this guy behind the counter after midnight till five…I can see he feels superior to me…doesn’t deign to answer when I ask him friendly-like where he’s from…they all are from somewhere else except the white woman who’s on pills…every time I go in he cops an attitude…very cold impersonal businesslike with me especially…not only am I American not only am I white not only am I old I'm probably a Christian that's how much he knows...on top of that he knows I'm a loner and nobody really likes a loner…tribal outcasts some of us actually hate football...one night I see him all-friendly giving a freebee to a black guy…making allies…forging an alliance…I would…the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that…he treats women with distant aloofness bordering on disdain...you can see he doesn’t like white guys…nobody does...I don’t like most of them either…the place has Arabs mostly but also Russians Serbs Mauritanians the like…one guy in 2001 when I came back here a week after 9-11 told me when I asked that he was from Kandahar in Afghanistan…about when we invaded…his eyes were deader than hell looking at me…I would have felt the same way but it gave me the creeps.



didn’t have a clue I had demonstrated against the dumbass Afghanistan War…looked exactly like a dude in a red/white checked headscarf they were looking for...I called the FBI on him...he disappeared a few days later...for all I knew they took him to Arabia and cut off his dick...I don't care he looked at me like I was a corpse...and I didn't do it motherfucker I'm against it...gimmie a chance here talk to me I can show you it's not us it's the fucking government...being an alert citizen I thought...if he's not a killer he should be all right...of course I didn't know about Guantanamo or Abu Graib back then neither did you...I’m not jingo or racist but I wasn't taking any chances back then neither were you...I’m interested in them all…meet them tell them what little I know about their countries inquire for knowledge…I listen carefully ask questions and learn…some of them like me…some of the Arabs and one Russian are very pleasant & intelligent…I see their confusion about the United States and sympathize…I'm confused about the son of a bitch too...I want the America of John Adams not Jefferson Davis.



I help them with the lingo…try to explain the unexplainable…we have cordial relations…I stand a few minutes discussing things if the place is empty…then one will disappear…someone will say he went back to Iraq…or Egypt…wherever…one guy who was from this place in Russia I’d never heard of vanished…I liked him the best…he described his little country thoroughly in good English…looked it up on the Internet…interesting…beautiful scenery…what was the name of that place?...Dagestan...listen I know these guys all over town...all over the country!...I live in fucking convenience stores...if you know me you know I get in real conversations with people almost everywhere I go...I'm like a counter-phobic you know...afraid of heights I'm always the guy at the top of a forty foot ladder...I don't like most people I admit it but I'm always involved with them...even if only for a minute or two...what's the sense in all this trivial conversation...I don't say hey how do you like the weather...I say hey what is it like back in Palestine...listen that's a fucking crime what America has done to you people and I am dead-set against it and on your side buddy...sometimes their eyes bug out...where did this dude come from?



One night I go into the store after midnight in a manic mood from having worked since dawn painting this impossible New Orleans sty…mildewed to the max crap all over the walls…worked my ass off then the dude didn’t show with the cash see him tomorrow…I’m a little pissed off...nearly broke...feeling combative and I am tired of this guy’s superior-acting shit…I go in…three fat-assed private black cops in their greens with guns standing around outside as usual…they patrol the Garden District but spend most of their time shooting the shit drinking coffee and scarfing donuts in a parking lot …I go in get coffee need cigarettes I’ll be up all night writing…he’s talking on a cell-phone completely ignoring me I’m the enemy...I lay my coffee on the counter and wait…and wait…and wait...he talks on in Arabic…Islamic music is coming from a CD player somewhere…I like this music…it moves…it’s exotic…you know I like that babe…the everyday humdrum pap-ular music today bores the crap out of me…so I’m listening and waiting but he’s getting on my nerves...it’s like five minutes I’m keeping cool but can’t he multi-task…it’s a deliberate insult…okay motherfucker I think…you want to play the dozens I'll show you an insult…finally he finishes turns to me…I’m looking at him with hooded eyes by now…I look right in his eyes the whole time pay my fine take the change…but he puts cigarettes just beyond my reach on his side of the counter…well I strained my lower back muscles real bad not long ago reaching over just like that to pick up something light...nearly crippled for a week...so I pick them up carefully and say “Osama sucks”.I watch him start to melt down…aha…I found his button no problem at all…and pushed it…he likes Osama and doesn’t like us.

“What?”

“Osama sucks.”

I look him dead in the eye.

“Why do you say this?”

“Because he just does that’s all. He’s a phony religious hypocrite asshole murdering son of a bitch.”

He moves his hand below the counter...I wonder if the son of a bitch is going to shoot me...I turn to leave…the door is locked…Ha, ha!...he not only is blowing his cover he's locked me in!...taken me prisoner!...holding me for interrogation!...for saying Osama sucks!...in the United States of America!...he’s not in Kansas anymore but hasn’t snapped to it yet…I look at him sideways and say Open this door.

“Why do you say this?” he demands.

I am about to bust out laughing at him losing his cool…the cares of the day wane as my star is rising from the east.

I say because he does man now open the door…he asks same question again…I turn and rap three times hard on the glass door to get a cop’s attention…one turns and approaches…door magically opens…I walk out in a hurry to get to my writing place…cop says what’s the matter...I say I told him Osama sucks and he locked me in…I bust out laughing walking to my rolling home…I look back the cop goes in talking...I hear the guy explaining...aggrieved...tells cop He said Osama sucks…I hear the cop say he does suck…I break up getting in the van sipping coffee lighting a blessed cigarette... driving away laughing harder and harder toward Lower Garden District bar where I wrote this…then I met this director of a play…one of the best nights of my existence…the guy disappeared about a month later…I didn’t ask where he went…other dudes are glad he’s gone…so am I.

Breaking the Henry Miller Barrier

It occurs to me now that I have busted the Henry Miller Barrier…like going faster than the speed of sound in literature…I can out-do old Henry in the sex talk…his language quaint and almost-antique now after nearly a century though his truth is fresh…I can be so frank it will embarrass a bonafide punk…the older I get the less I care that it offends anybody the way I talk or write…maybe it’s crass to you…I’m not talking or writing any more in Latin unless it advances the story…I speak English it’s a pussy not a vagina…a dick not a penis to me…if you can’t take it I’m not sorry. ..I’m pissed that I can’t be banned in Boston…Maybe I can still get banned in Lake Charles the anus of the country.

Of course Henry Miller was more intellectual and scholarly a better writer than me…he was certainly better-educated and better-read…or maybe not…he was no activist that’s for sure…but he had no illusions about the way things are...utter contempt for the establishment...for mediocrity…for half-assed pompous hypocrits who know all about God...for the bourgeoisie…for the dull-witted religious materialistic middle-class romance-reading know-nothing tv-glued morons who still are the bane of all existence…I can’t match his breadth depth continuity style or prolific output…that guy had a lot of energy!...a lot of style!...the women of his day he had their number all right…less of what he said about them then is true now of course…what with women’s liberation and more honest sex relations between them and us…that’s right…us…we men who have to kiss their asses to get some loving understanding…women say he was a misogynist…then why was he surrounded by talented beautiful women until the day he died in his 80’s?...Henry Miller loved women but wasn't dishonest or blind to their faults...me too.



The night of the day a Saturday when I was 12 and my mother had walked in on me jacking off in broad daylight on my bed with my eyes closed in ecstasy…my stepfather Sidney summoned me to the patio for a private talk…it went like this…”Mike there are birds and there are bees and they stick to their own kind”…that was it…the birds and the bees talk…that was the sum-total of my sex education in Louisiana in 1953 or 1954…I nodded and returned to my room...I didn’t want to rock the boat either…everybody was too tense and evasive about the subject of sex...only alluded to never actually mentioned in my presence…I overheard things when they partied and talked...it felt too shaky to explore...everybody shut up when I came in...Sid had some "blue records" and I listened to them in secret...they excited my imagination but revealed little.

It took decades for me to get Sidney’s subtle humor…my stepfather had some class…he knew I’d know the score sooner or later and didn’t want to be responsible for the outcome.



Well I already knew what the birds did I had seen them doing it…they couldn’t hide that from me…I’d seen dogs fucking and got the idea humans did something like it but I couldn’t figure how…I remember hoping they didn’t get stuck together like that…my sex education came from boys my age and a little older…Willie who was a year older had already shown me how to jerk off by demonstration…it was a sleepover and he laid in my bed with his younger brother my age in his own bed saying I’m gonna tell dad…Willie said I’ll beat the shit out of you if you do…those kids used to beat each other into bloody submission while Henry and I gaped at the spectacle…it didn’t take me long to get the idea…first time I came I was flogging it in my aunt’s bathroom in Houston for about two hours working it over until it was raw and looking at a sexy picture…which today would be nothing…of Kim Novak’s barely-covered breasts…God bless her she was my first…it was absolutely excruciating it totally exhausted me and I went to sleep in the bathroom.



Do you see it…I was 12 years old and knew almost nothing of female nomenclature…I remember the first time a boy ever named that mysterious part…he was an older boy and he said it was called a cock…not long after that Jerry Woolley the poorest kid in school…another realist…from a hardscrabble country family…and my only friend in Lake Charles…killed in a car wreck at 14…straightened me out with the correct term…pussy…but a few years later at 17 I witnessed a southern kid in Marine Corps Boot Camp who had never been corrected from that original malicious misnomer…nearing the end of our 13-week winter vacation in that freezing swamp…he announced…”As soon as we get liberty I’m going to town and get me some cock!”…to hoots and whistles from a squad bay full of marines…what a dumb bastard...the senior drill instructor himself came charging into the barracks yelling WHO SAID THAT?…kid was dumbfounded...embarrassed…a lot of explaining to do… first he’d heard of it…the D.I. made him do fifty squat jumps…yelling IT’S A FUCKING PUSSY YOU MAGGOT!...NOW WHAT IS IT?...SIR! IT’S A FUCKING PUSSY SIR!...HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A FUCKING PUSSY PRIVATE BRITT?...SIR! NO SIR!...WHY NOT PRIVATE BRITT ARE YOU A HOMOSEXUAL?...SIR! NO SIR!...the hard way to learn but funny as hell at the time…those drill instructors cracked us up when they weren’t kicking our freezing asses thru barbed wire...incidentally toughening our minds and bodies…making us insensitive to human life and so on.



Frankly I think pornography is probably a good thing overall…a better sex education than you get in most public schools I heard…at least you can see how some people do it…at least you can see all the parts and how they work…of course it’s exploitative of women (and men)...what isn't?...and utterly tasteless most of the time…what isn’t?...but sometimes there’s a really good fuck that can drive you out of your grape…kids shouldn’t watch it but they do…we would have!...let them see the best fucks maybe they'll have more successful relationships...the danger is that it will become an obsession muscling out other things…a whole generation of absolute sex maniacs...or that boys will disrespect girls for it and vice-versa…many already do anyway…disrespect and resent each other you know…many females jealous of males wrongly thinking we have the best part…and males the same way…jealous of female privilege and later their control of the ritual sex dance…in old age I’m feeling slightly jealous of young women…they fuck all the time…don’t seem to care who knows it either…I wish I had recorded some of the conversations I’ve heard in coffee shops and bars…they turn me on…but bourgeois notions usually win in the end …they satisfy their horniness…strangle and tangle each other in sticky romantic social cobwebs…have orgies…twosomes threesomes foursomes and moresomes… trade partners like used cars…break egos like pencil points…spend their precious energy in pointless rebellion…defying authority with shitloads of irrelevant trivia…streaking…politics…rock and roll...the occult…devil worship…in the early Sixties the big craze at college campuses was how many undergrads could cram themselves into a telephone booth…in the 20’s it was how many live goldfish one could swallow…one reason our generation demanded RELEVANCE!...then they get too tired too broke or too lonely and go home to mama… make up…meet a guy…get married…squeeze out babies like eggs of the Alien mother… then hound some poor bastard to death about bringing in the grits…start screwing other guys or women or get fat and cut off the sex…it never happened to me but I heard the story often enough…I see them dragging their fat asses and waddling their inner-tube bellies down the street towing a bunch of overstuffed selfish brats around who will need everything someday and do anything to get it…and I don’t care dude…it’s not my problem…some poor devils can’t live without marriage but to me it was just another cage…ha, ha…now I would love to be married…I’m finally ready for it!...at 68!...I’d be a great companion she could talk my head off and I would fuck her brains out...but it’s too late… oh well…my life is filled with well-deserved irony…I’m trying not to complain these days…is ruefulness okay?




Now here comes a great-looking gal all dressed in pink and black my favorite color combo…tight black top…shocking pink pants…black witchy hat and black flip-flops…black sunglasses framed in pink…style!...Yes the one walking with the man wearing the collector’s edition Mardis Gras throw…an olive-green Harley-Davidson cap…with the expensive watch and the fat belly…in front of the fat wallet…strolling down the street with his hand on her fat ass…but tight as a drum & no panty line…are they in love?...I hope so…I hope there’s a great passion...I see no hope for any love unaccompanied by great passion …it’s a fire of passion which burns in my unloved heart…unrequited passion unrequited love…a whole lake of love seething in a cauldron of volcanic emotions…we dampen our passion dilute it in games and dull it with toil divert it from a cauldron of seething erotica and panting impossible expectations… into other channels...to safer spillways...our work our families our art our lovers even our enemies…to prevent a flood…to keep the dam from busting wide open and drowning us in turbulent spontaneous passion...we arm ourselves with indifference to ease or prevent the pain…the pain of loss the fear of it…the stretched-out empty loneliness of it…the fear to lose the thing we need the most…each other…we deny ourselves and you do it too…we can’t need each other want each other desire each other fuck each other and lose each other too…so don’t take a chance…it hurts too much to lose…don’t even play…it’s too big a gamble babe…after losing your ass on the roulette of passionate love too many times it looks like a losing game...until one day it isn’t…then it gets real I heard...you have to meet the right one at the right time and do the right thing…but it’s a spin of the wheel and a drop of the ball into the right slot the right color the right number...maybe prayer helps.

This is what the guy must have meant by following your bliss...I been wanting to say some of this stuff for a long time...I laughed my ass off writing this.