I have just started a busking site that I think you will love. It's called The Sidewalk Performer.
It's going to be my new home base, I'm combining all my content on that one site, so go over and look around at what I put up so far and sign up it's free.
But for all my followers here At The Office I know y'all will love my new secret newsletter that focuses more on literary, philosophy, and religion, it's called Hither Go There.
Also I gotta Buy Me A Coffee and you can go over there and sign up and get free stuff and discounts.
And lastly you may have heard about my fund raiser for my van.
Well, we are half way there, I'm almost out of the hole, please don't forget me. I want to thank everyone so far that has helped me out. I have been able to get medical attention, pay off outstanding bills and pay off most of the old wrecked van. I just need to pay off the remainder of the old van and go shopping for a new used van.
I'm hoping for this soon, I want to be able to travel again to good spots and get my family back up on our feet.
The grey wiry smoke, spindled and writhed, creeping through the darkness, from the small glow of the sputtering bulb, that was failing to light up the room.
And at the tip of the smoke, was a small wormy face, looking slowly, and darting back and forth.
And out of its side came slender feminine ethereal arms, with dainty hands, coming around the front of its head in an O.
Like it was dancing in water, and moving elements in the room.
Then someone opened the door, letting in the light and wind, and in a puff, the smoke exploded, into tiny whispers, as the voices of men entered the room, discussing important things.
Things of business, things of worldly affairs, and they all had watches.
In the hot night, in that dark place, with the bad walls, and no good footing.
The five o'clock shadow knows, and chews his cud, and makes the cigarette bob, and makes the smoke bounce, across the chard leather face, of the old time In-mate, serving the term.
His terrored eyes, with the flames inside, they're screaming. And the fire down below, it saturates the being, because there is no fire like it on earth, he's right down there next to Hell.
And a thousand years is a day, and a day is a thousand years, and he don't know when it'll stop, but unlike the Damned, he knows it will.
He knows he has it better now, then the happiest day he ever had with us. He's just waiting for the consequences to burn off.
He knows, because the judge told him so.
So he rolls another cigarette, screaming, and hopes again today, that someone on the outside will put some money on his books, for a glass of water, or a cool breeze, or a firm ground, or, if God wills it, an early release.
And if you put your head in the clouds, and listen real close, you can hear him screaming, up from the bottom of the ground, wailing for candles, wailing for prayers, wailing for mercy.
Just above my spot on the sidewalk, I was held up in another run down hotel room, and my past was jabbing at me again, as it had everyday since she left.
"I miss my wife, I miss my wife," would spew from my mouth uncontrollably every now and again and at least once a day, for seven years.
Mental scar hiccups, nagging shame, but not as bad as it used to be.
Shortly after she left state and took the kids, I would wander around New Orleans with outbursts of frequent screams and sobbing. I couldn't leave the city, because anywhere else, the police would have taken me away. The fifth of whiskey a day, did little back then. So at night after the fifth, I'd go out drinking.
Even travelers have a home, for me it's cheap hotels that let you smoke. It's a never ending search for a spot on the sidewalk and a hotel that'll let you smoke cigarettes.
Sometimes days and nights sleeping on buses and trains searching.
Sometimes a good spot, but no cheap hotel.
Sometimes cheap hotels, but they wont let you work the spot. So back on the bus to another city, so I can sleep on the bus.
It's a gamble.
In the winter a thick tough suit jacket and fedora, cargo pants and slip on sneakers, not white ever.
In the summer cargo Capris, sandal flip flops and a vest I make out of a jacket coat. After the winter the fedora has usually thinned out enough for the summer heat.
I buy as I go, I don't lug.
One bag is all I need, it holds my rig, and personals.
Working outta the pockets, sleight of hand is the gimmick, for the quick ten minute show, for the curious, or for those with time to kill, ten fifteen minutes, then the hat is passed. Usually the first
show pays just less than the price of a room.
Four or five shows could get me through the day. But if I can, I work all day to forget my problems.
In the states I would prefer to live outta my van. Driving hundreds of miles, from pitch to pitch. Truck stops with cheap private showers in the morning, and a cup of tea.
I come from a long line of sidewalk, shifty eyed losers.
When I'm in a crowd, you can find me, I'm the one who looks like trouble from your grandpa´s past, maybe your great grandpa's past,
maybe worse.
I remember when I was younger, looking at old guys like that downtown, and thinking, That's what I'll be!
Well here I am.
For us it's harder now, private property regulations, and less foot traffic in the states, and the spots in Europe are closing up.
Cops and shops and bad guys, are the setbacks of the job.
Cops and shops, wanna shut you down, and the bad guys, are looking to take what they saw you make.
So here I am, on my back, looking up, and staring at the cheap neon lite on the ceiling of my room.
The smoke and the steam leaked out, from dark abandoned buildings.
There were third world vendors set up on the sidewalk. The old man walked through the dying city. It was dying into a broken down cart. With only hints of it's once proud stature, like a museum, that had packed up, and left a couple displays and posters behind.
He walked with his dirty drab suit, through the foot traffic, everyone looked poor and
desperate.
It was the reason he chose that town. It had nothing left, but it's culture.
He had dirt and a two day shadow on his face, but he could not see me.
I followed him back to his room, and into his room, and into his closet, where I hid, where I could see
him in all his glory, that Reporter, banging out visions, on his machine.
Little Beto woke up on the side of the road, he had abandoned the modern world. He rejected the Dialectic.
He had a muddy drab suit, and he lay searching his pockets, doing his morning inventory.
Fixing his tie, he slicked the sweat and grime back in his hair, and stood up.
Slapping that dirt off his suit, he looked on down the road.
That road, that held him like a baby, that held him like a baby every night.
And he began to walk on down that road, that weaved through the long and empty desert, stretching out before him.
And as the days and the months mumbled by, he walked and walked and whittled, and prayed, and grew old, mumbling.
Mumbling.
And his beard began to grow.
And it grew and grew.
Past his arms, past his legs, down the road, and on down that road, like a river, like a train, rolling across the desert, rolling across the sky, blowing out steam and whistle clouds. blowing out steam and whistle clouds.
And,
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Oh Man.
He was blowing out clouds, of gratitude, worship, purpose, and joy.
It was a humid, angry, broken down city, and it had lost its mind.
It was screaming into the night, and somewhere off in the distance, in one of it's old quiet forgotten corners, there was a motel room, with an old man making visions, secrets, and madness.
It was a dim lit room, with filth stained walls and yellowed windows, and the fleas were jumpin. And there was moans next door. And there were gunshots outside, in that wet stale air. And someone was laughing in the alley, outside, down below, I think it was laughing?
There was no fridge, no food, and nobody, just a small cot, a desk, and a sink to pee in, and the old man, in boxers, on his back, sweating like a pig, in that hot night.
He was staring at the yellowed walls, covered with stains and water marks, and he could see faces in them.
Faces in the filthy walls, haunting the room, with all the desperation they've seen.
And he could hear them.
Wailing together, in shame, from the other side, putting on a show, for thirty thousand nights.
And this night, was his night, to see the show.
"After I'm gone, Will I be up there too?" He wondered.
The old grey sedan barrels down the highway with a cigarette in its mouth.
The old man's suit and five o clock, stare down the road to see the future.
Tall trees whop whop by, like giant pendulums, as far as the eye can see.
It's The Eternal Corridor, Ladys and Gentleman, there's nothing but trees and road, and sky.
The engine wails and the wheels roar, on down the road.
But he's still under the tree, in front of his house. Tree sap and bird droppings litter the car, marking it for purgatory, marking it for all the years down the highway.
His head is static, squealing, clicking, buzzing, and regret is stabbing over and over. White knuckled on the steering wheel, he goes, stoic, barreling down the highway he goes, trying to get home.
And the vents in the dash, blow hot hot winds, in his face and heart, off the engine, and up from the furnaces of hell, in the hot night, in that old car, down the highway, down the eternal corridor.
Staring into a thousand years, but he has no currency here.
Pray for him, my brothers and sisters, that he might have change for the tolls.
I saw old men in dirty old suits, with slightly
overgrown tapered hair cuts, slicked back with grease.
I heard raspy voiced, wild tales,
about adventures on the road. It was like a private club out there, on the sidewalk.
I saw them conserving cigarette butts, by rolling. Eating two dollar breakfasts and
drinking one dollar drinks all day. In make shift "holes in the walls", with businesses built
from hallways, with bar stools, and a long counter.
Ash trays and condiments down the
counters, like an exhibit.
And every seat filled with a worn out man, huddled over each
plate.
A dingy, chatter, smoke filled, tight fit. Sometimes with lines of men out the door
like a soup kitchen.
I saw this when America was free.
I saw them eke out tomorrow's living, by peddling, pitching, and performing for small
bills.
I saw them working manual labor, looking out of place in their suits, dirty and torn.
Like saints.
They were that town, right down to the accent, it was written all over their faces, you
could smell it all over them and every town has one of them.
Every night before I sleep, I hear that night train far way. And it's crying out, like whales do for sailors. And I know, one day it comes for me, to go to the other-side. To that place all men dread, because we know Hell is there. Hell for those who don't pack well for trips far away.
We all hope we packed well, but judgement is stark.
In that day, it's naked and real, and final.
So hear ye hear ye oh man!
Pack well for trips far away, for no man knows the schedule.
Pack well for trips far away, for no man knows for sure what he'll need.
Pack well for trips far away my brothers, it's time to find out, what to believe.
Surrender your comfort now, because we can't hide from the truth over there.
Worry about Hell, because our vanity beckons it.
And one day the the man oppenned his eyes and saw that humanity was hopeless...
The Lunatic woke and came out in the morning; it was 8 in the evening.
He sat on a sidewalk trash can til 3 in the mornin. At 3 he jumped off and ran through the city screaming lunacy. He ran and screamed as much as he could, and when he was done it was around 4am.
He sat down in the middle of the late nite early morning street and he began to tell a story....he said; "life is full of good things and life is full of crud. Every man's got a dream and every man's got a problem he'll tell you about."
The spectators of the problem solvers, look and laugh and cry. The drunken leaches of the bars with sombre happieness and men who work themselves til one day, they don't show up for work...they die."
Good art isn't appreciated, just forgotten as another subject in school, and all of this, and all of this, and no one gives a shoot! And no one gives a darn! No one, no one, no one gives a darn!"
" Laurel and Hardy stand tall above my head like ominous scare crows, and the children of tomato sauce and the cookies of jello, consulted with Latners." he said in the middle of the late nite early morning street.
"But there was a time, a lunatic I am if you will for a momment, a time, of understanding, but they - we killed him, and now nothing." "Remorsefull belligerence fills the streets of all our minds and laser beam head lites fill my eyes like thighs and lips and toes of a beautiful woman, and if you don't know what I'm talkin about man, then you ain't real!" "And to you I'm just some crazy street person!" he screamed the tail end of that as a matter a fact.
And the man looked at the world and his time period with disgust and hate for it all. He was out cast. He was an any way. Though. He sought change, change never found him not even a nickel or an open mind unless it in some way benefit the holder of that mind. No one knew of what trouble he coveted, no one knew. Though. He saw a horizon of intellectualism it was only in his mind...He said; "To heck with you." to humanity, its children, and its leaders, "To heck with you one and all." Spontaneously he blurted, "Humanity is a curious animal it don't know what it is.The portrayal of death excites me." sang the Lunatic in orgasm.
All the mind frames of curiousity abandon him, left him to himself and his maddness. "I'm sick of my insight, sick of my knowledge of the truth, it lurks behind me in dark alleys late at nite and terrifies me, it prowls where ever I go and people look at me and know I know the truth, and laugh at my torture. The stupid ones laugh without fear, knowing they're immune, the ignorant ones laugh confident, then nervously knowing it might happen to them."
The Lunatic stood and walked to a darkened large business window some feet away and stared at his reflection in it. He saw what the ignorant saw, he saw what the stupid could see, and he laughed because his insight was consistent. Looking the world in the face he saw the truth. He saw the solution of uncaring, he finally figured it out, so he held up his bottle and from his mouth he uttered it...a proclamation to the street he said:
"But oh Man!"
"Where is our humility?"
"Can you see what the great minds of the Modernists have done to us?!"
"But can it really be Christ the hope?"
"Can it be so simple and so complicated that we forgot how it is that we blaspheme?"
"Did we rule him out for some thing better, or for the sake of our own vanity?" "For even the protestants rely on they're own interpretation.." "Is our authority really our own vanity?" "Chesterton and Belloc knew, they knew." "Kerouac the st. Augistine of our times." "Marx the genius who must have forgotten to add God when designing a perfect society." "Einstien who could have been a great shoe maker." "Thankfully the same people who made the bomb couldn't understand Nietzche...may be if he would 've used math."
"In this mass transit society of emediate gratification, no one understands aquiring a tast, instead of a cigarette, a candy bar, instead of caviar, that same old crud on top 40." "Once again the savages have invaded Rome." "But for me I see...I see giant icons of the Mother Mary and Fidel Castro luming down with big shifty eyes and a big cigar in his mouth."
"I see Machiavelli and Charles Bukowski arms over shoulders singing drunkin Irish songs and pointing with sarcastic grinns." "Laughing at the confused failings of the great expanse of the American 'know how'." "But as Americans we cling to the hopes that computers, technology,materialism,wieghts and measures, the here and now, the great myth, will some how save our souls..BUT!...Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us."
And the Lunatic went and confessed, hanging off a priests ear, he confessed, for he knew he was mad and he knew there was only one hope, that latin god Jesu Christe the God man from the Jews.........
My eyes blackened and I could see no more. . . . .
The people waited for these reports once a week. They’d gossip nervously all week about it, till the next one.
Every Tuesday a report came in on the radio, at three o’clock in the morning, from a monotone man, who the people used to ignore or mock….that was before the reports started making sense….too much sense.
The old man sat in the run down hotel banging away on the report. Banging away what he promised gad. Banging away the stress that was wrapped around his mind like rubber bands and sharp thread tightly wound causing marks…screaming.
Hunched over the keys, dressed in a filthy suit, stained, and ragged….I could smell it through the thick smoke that had been there for decades, I could see it through that smog in the room, as I peeked around the closet door where I was hiding. I could see the nightmares he had every night.
I could see the years of failures in his life every night……. every night that I watched him from behind the closet door.
I could see the regret and the stained tea cup, caked with years of old tea, browning the inside of the cup.
I could see it from behind the closet door.
I could smell cedar and mold and old man, in the closet behind me, but I couldn’t see what he was writing and that’s why I was there, for all those months and now I couldn’t see what he was writing.
We were running out of time, I could feel it slipping away as he banged on the keys like a mad metronome.
So many depended on me, not to be discovered or dead. They all loved the old man, in terror. What would they do without his approval…but he was anonymous, nobody knew who he really was. I was the only one that knew who he really was, or where he was. And now nobody knows where I am.
And I was afraid of the frail old man, afraid of what he knew….and what he might do with it. You see while everyone else lived apathetically, with point of views based on vanity, the old man had toiled away at learning. He disregarded his own self-interest, even if it was embarrassing….even if it was enduring mockery and threatening accusations.
And I was trapped in that horrible stinking room, with wrenching cramps shooting through my legs and body, the hunger pains were almost unbearable….always peeing in a bottle. All I wanted was for him to finish….but he kept chain smoking, hunched over…. banging those keys.
Then a surprise shock of pain in my stomach as I heard him speak to me for the first time, from across the room…………
And it was at that moment I realized he had known I was there the whole time. . . . . .
- The Lunatic woke and came out in the morning....it was 8 in the evening.
He sat on a sidewalk trash can until 3 in the morning.
As I crept up behind him along side a building, he could not see me.
But I heard him begin to speak.
He said,
"But oh Man!"
"Where is our humility?"
"Can you see what the great minds of the Modernists have done to us?!"
"But can it really be Christ the hope?"
"Can it be so simple and so complicated that we forgot how it is that we blaspheme?"
"Did we rule him out for some thing better, or for the sake of our own vanity?"
"For even the protestants rely on they're own interpretation.."
"Is our authority really our own vanity?"
"Chesterton and Belloc knew.....they knew."
"Kerouac the st. Augustine of our times....he knew."
"But, somewhere, poor old Luther forgot."
"Marx the genius who must have forgotten to add God when designing a perfect society."
"Lilith, the great emasculator and baby killer and destroyer of families......"
"Refusing modesty and humilty for hate and ego and the right to be immoral."
"Who are our children?"
"Who are our fathers."
"Where is our Holy Mother?"
"Where are the meek?"
"Woman where is thine veil?" . . . .
"In this mass transit society of emediate gratification, no one understands aquiring a taste."
"Instead of a cigarette....a candy bar."
"Instead of caviar.......that same old slop from mass media."
"Once again the savages have invaded Rome."
"But for me,"
"I see..."
"I see giant icons of the Mother Mary....and Fidel Castro luming down with big shifty eyes and a big cigar in his mouth."
"I see Machiavelli and Charles Bukowski, arms over shoulders singing drunkin Irish songs and pointing with sarcastic grinns."
"Laughing at the confused failings of the great expanse of the 'American know how'."
"But as Americans we cling to the hopes that computers, technology, materialism, wieghts and measures, the here and now, the great myth, will some how save our souls."
"BUT...!"
"Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us."
- And the Lunatic went and confessed.
Hanging off a priests ear, he confessed.
For he knew he was mad and he knew there was only one hope....
That latin god Jesu Christe, the God man from the Jews.........
And as I stopped following him some where in the back streets of the dewy morning night.
Just above my spot on the sidewalk, held up in another run down hotel room, my past was jabbing at me again....as it had everyday since she left.
"I miss my wife, I miss my wife," would spew from my mouth uncontrolably every now and again and at least once a day....for 7 years.
mental scar hiccups
nagging shame.
but not as bad as it used to be. shortly after she left state and took the kids, i would wander around New Orleans with outbursts of frequent screams and sobbing.
i couldn´t leave the city because anywhere else the police would have taken me away.
the fifth of wiskey a day did little back then. so at nite after the fifth i´d go out drinking.
even travelers have a home, for me it´s cheap hotels that let you smoke.
it´s a never ending search for a spot on the sidewalk and a hotel that´ll let you smoke.
sometimes days and nites sleeping on buses and trains searching.
sometimes a good spot but no cheap hotel.
sometimes cheap hotels, but they wont let you work the spot. so back on the bus to another city so i can sleep on the bus.
it´s a gamble.
in the winter a thick tuff suit jacket and fedora, cargo pants and slip on sneakers....not white ever.
in the summer cargo capris, sandal flip flops and a vest i make out of a suit jacket. after the winter the fedora has usually thinned out enough for the summer heat.
i buy as i go, i don´t lug. one bag is all i need. holds my rig and personals.
working outta the pockets, slight of hand is the gimmick for the quick ten minute show, for the curious or those with time to kill, ten fifteen minutes then the hat is passed. usually the first show is just less then the price of a room.
4 or 5 shows could get me through the day. but if i can, i work all day to forget my problems.
in the states i would prefer to live outta my van. driving hundreds of miles, from pitch to pitch.
truck stops with cheap private showers in the morning and cup of tea.
i come from a long line of sidewalk shifty eyed losers. when i´m in a crowd, i´m the one who looks like trouble from your grandpa´s past....maybe your great grandpa´s, maybe worse.
i remember when i was younger, lookin at old guys like that downtown and thinkin, "that`s what i´ll be"...well here i am.
for us it´s hard now, private property regulations, and less foot traffic in the states....and the spots in europe are closing up.
cops, shops, and bad guys are the set backs to the job.
cops and shops wanna shut you down and the bad guys are looking to take what they saw you make.
so on my back i stare at the cheap neon lite on the ceiling of my room.
it´s lonely, but it´s less trouble then a woman.. . . .
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