Shock and Awesome

I recently learned that The Tarheel Opry house here in Jacksonville has an Internet capable jukebox that can download music off of a website for an extra fee. This has HUGE potential. Here's my plan.
1. Wear the tightest jeans I can buy, maybe a flannel shirt and a cowboy hat, (I'm assuming this is what people wear in these places)and walk in the door like I'm the best damned line dancer in Onslow county.
2. Go straight for the jukebox, download Leafhouse by Animal Collective and place it in queue after Garth Brooks and whatever else people two-step to.
3. Go to the bathroom and take off all my clothes, except my zebra-striped boxer briefs I wore under my Wranglers.
4. Cover my body in brilliantly colored paint, with sparkles and swirls and sticky rhinestones. Decorate my face like a panda. Maybe a kitten.
5. Patiently wait for the intro to Leafhouse.
6. When the music starts and people stop dancing to stare at each other in confusion, I bust through the doors with a WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! waving my arms and slapping my thighs in an interpretive dance which resembles the mating rituals of a an ostrich, but better.
7. Dance until the song is over, or a drunk xenophobic redneck spears me into the Coors light display.

That would be amazing.

Bluebird-Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.


there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Just sticks

When does a stick
Become a stick?
Why can’t I
Change it into
A gun
Or a sword
Or a baseball bat
Or a scepter?
It’s just a stick now,
And sticks are
Boring.

Hank,
Sometimes it flows. Just like you wrote about. Sometimes it flows uncontrollably, spews violently and it doesn't stop until my fingers want to bleed and splinter. Sometimes I have it and I don't want it, because it is overpowering and controlling, like a woman with a checkbook. Sometimes I have to find the nearest pen and receipt or paper bag. But sometimes it's there, and I know it's there, but it wont come out. It can be a stubborn fucker in there and no amount of cajoling or bribing will get it to emerge.
I wonder if you had this. This barrier between your desires to create and your body's desire to be futile. If it doesn't come, give up you say. If you have to stare at a typewriter or computer screen, it's not for you. But I can't. I simply can't stop. Just like you couldn't stop. You wrote on your death bed, of cats and betting on horses. You knew it was something deeper than "just stop" and sometimes I wish it wasn't. Sometimes I wish I could relax or sleep instead of drinking scalding coffee at two in the morning while pulling my hair out to get something on paper. So were you talking to me when you said QUIT? Should I take up card collecting or scrap booking? No drink or woman's love or wealth, right? You knew, Buk. You knew and I know. We know the power and I can't stop. Won't stop. You never did.

The Last Supper

When I'm dead, don't cry for me
don't shed a single tear.
Just fulfill my final wishes
all laid out right here.
My only wish in passing
is to make for me a deal-
that my family will partake in me
as a Sunday meal.
I know I'll be quite tasty
marbled meat, yet lean
'twill surely be the biggest
rump roast you've ever seen.
Boil me, baste me, cook me up
however you so please;
serve me with a side of rice
and some wine and cheese.
Light a couple candles
use napkins made of cotton.
Make it a a truly gourmet meal
so I'll not be forgotten.
And if I'm not remembered
as a husband, friend or dad,
at least I know that I will be
the best meal they've ever had.

Yahoo! registration obligations - a poem

You want to use our service,
but you must be legal age
to form a binding contract
by laws set forth by states.

Don't tell lies about yourself
in any slight amount.
For if you do, we have the right
to cancel your account.

For our clients, we at yahoo
want the very best.
Even more so for the kids
of thirteen years or less.

So if you're young and want to join,
it surely would behoove you
to ask your parents nicely
and get them to approve you.

But if they do, then let them know
you can access anything,
including email, message boards
and instant messaging.

So as a legal guardian,
you surely are entitled
to determine whether Yahoo! content
is appropriate for your child.



In consideration of your use of the Service, you represent that you are of legal age to form a binding contract and are not a person barred from receiving services under the laws of the United States or other applicable jurisdiction. You also agree to: (a) provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as prompted by the Service's registration form (the "Registration Data") and (b) maintain and promptly update the Registration Data to keep it true, accurate, current and complete. If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or Yahoo! has reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, Yahoo! has the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any and all current or future use of the Service (or any portion thereof). Yahoo! is concerned about the safety and privacy of all its users, particularly children. For this reason, parents of children under the age of 13 who wish to allow their children access to the Service must create a Yahoo! Family Account. When you create a Yahoo! Family Account and add your child to the account, you certify that you are at least 18 years old and that you are the legal guardian of the child/children listed on the Yahoo! Family Account. By adding a child to your Yahoo! Family Account, you also give your child permission to access many areas of the Service, including, email, message boards and instant messaging (among others). Please remember that the Service is designed to appeal to a broad audience. Accordingly, as the legal guardian, it is your responsibility to determine whether any of the Service areas and/or Content (as defined in Section 6 below) are appropriate for your child

Lord, I can't wait to don that scarf

I was smiling so hard my face hurt.I sprinted down a cold brick road, past towering Victorian houses and picket fences while leaves of amber and crimson twirled and spun to the ground. Massive oak branches blotted out the sun,marbling the brown grass and cracked sidewalk. I smelled the droopy, gnatty pumpkins and wood burning stoves of my childhood. I was yelling something and I could see my breath.
When I awoke, I was still smiling and my heart beat was shaking my cheeks. I couldn't go back to sleep. I quietly snuck out of bed, concealed by the annoying humm of the air conditioner dripping in the window and stepped out for a smoke into the soggy, musty air of summer.

I have tried a hundred times, I guess,
To find a rhyme for month;
I have failed a hundred times, I know,
But succeeded the hundred and one-th.

There were two men a training went.
It was in December month;
One had his bayonet thrown away,
The other had his gun th-
rown away.

– Miscellaneous Notes and Queries, August 1894

Go to any backwoods honky tonk south of the mason-dixon line while any Merle Haggard or Charlie Daniels song plays on the jukebox and you will hear it screamed above the drunken crowd no less than half a dozen times. The South Will Rise Again! It is the rebel rousin' cry of Dixie and the southerner's claim to fame. After last weekend, despite my personal views on the south and the people unfortunate enough to have been born here, I believe they have the capabilities of doing so.
It started with a car accident. My friend and I were half way through a bottle of Vodka and quickly working our way through two dozen chicken wings when I heard the inimitable sound of colliding vehicles. I haphazardly dropped my chicken on the plate, carefully set down my glass of vodka, and ran outside to see two, mangled, smoking, fluid spewing vehicles sitting feet in front of my lawn. I heard moaning, so I made my way across the pavement to see if anyone needed the assistance of a shirtless, unequipped, half drunk, barefoot, stay-at-home dad. Surely they would.
They didn't.
But I did call 911 and stayed for moral support, doing my best to calm the drunk driver of the crushed car and tell him he needed to sit down and apply direct pressure to his head. He didn't listen and thought it best to simply walk home and let the police take care of the accident. He made it a little more than eight feet before tripping over the curb.
Next came the elderly mother and middle aged son from the smokey depths of the car, reeking of freshly deployed airbag and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Judging by their slurring and arm gestures, I determined they were locals. Judging by their breath, they were also drunk. I guided them both to the curb, and once again cajoled them to apply pressure to various leaking ports on their heads and faces. It was to no avail because who did I think I was, I aint no doctor and I aint even got no shoes on. Silly me.
I was juggling now. The dispatcher on the phone wanted more detailed information, the elderly mother was crying and screaming "what do I do?" into the night sky and the man in the grass was attempting to crawl away. Just when I thought about bidding the whole thing farewell and returning to my abandoned vodka, I saw the glorious, flashing, red and blue lights of an undercover police car approach the chaos. I cautiously pranced around glass and antifreeze toward the man stepping out of the jeep. I thought it odd that he was wearing civilian clothes, but I assumed he was off duty and proceeded to give him a rather in depth situation report. I rambled on about the severity and number of injuries, who was driving and how I believed it all happened. I caught my breath and waited for him to jump into action. He didn't move.
"Well, aren't you going to go over there?" I said after several seconds of him standing on his tip toes to get a better view of the steaming wreckage.
"Oh, no" he said, quite matter-of-factly. "I'm not a cop, I just have this flashing light on my jeep and figured I would come down and sit here to keep other cars from crashing into y'all 'till the cops show up."
It took me several seconds to absorb this, and even then, I had to break it down into more digestible niblets.
He isn't a cop.
He isn't even a volunteer firefighter.
He's just a guy.
With a flashing light.
And a jeep.
Okay, I understood now. All except for WHY THIS GUY HAD A FLASHING LIGHT ON HIS JEEP! Who were these people?
I had little time to dwell on the matter before a truck full of men with unusually large goatees pulled over asking if everyone was okay. They piled out of the extended cab and accessed the tool box in the bed. Out came flashlights, a first aid kit, various tools, blankets and even a few road cones. After all, you never know when you may have to be solely responsible for directing traffic. I wondered how long it would be before someone pulled the jaws of life out of their trunk. I gladly afforded them the spotlight and, after getting my lukewarm drink, played the less demanding role of a spectator from my front yard.
Nineteen agonizing minutes after the collision, the police and fire trucks arrived at a perfectly organized scene. There were cones, triaged patients, jeeps with flashing lights, and someone even found some emergency flares to keep traffic at bay. It was the most organized citizen response I had ever witnessed. There was no panic or bickering, and everyone knew what to do, as if they practiced monthly drills and ran through equipment check lists every morning.
So the next time I find myself in Dukenfield's bar watching two swaying, fifty year old men stand and salute the confederate flag while wailing that the south will rise again, I'm going to take their word for it. Mainly because they scare me, but also because now I know if they really wanted it to happen, they have enough shit in their trunks to get er' done.

My ultimate fear is that I will fall into the mundane, regimented life that is every American's destiny. I suppose it is, at the very least, a slight blow to the pride of any adult, male human, but imminent nonetheless. Once we started living for pleasure instead of necessity, it became unavoidable. But I often wonder if even neanderthal man experienced, to a certain degree, the same feeling. Did he fear living in the same cave or region his whole life? Did he wonder what life would be like with a different female? Did he hate the fact that after hunting, building fires and skinning bison, he had no time to relax?
Men were created to be strong, agile, violent and aggressive. Men were not created to sit in an office, or classroom, or stay home with kids. By no means do I feel as though I can't, shouldn't, or don't want to, but it often feels unnatural, foreign and alien. So I strive to be adventurous in my daily tasks; running the occasional red light or exchanging socially non-acceptable words with a fellow man for a cheap thrill. But it leaves me with that same sense of unfulfilled emptiness and desire. This desire which is only partially curved by the smell of a campfire, or the feel of three days worth of growth on my face. I look at my muscles and watch them slowly fade into my frame, swapping residency with fat and cellulite. I have not been true to myself or nature in this life, and can only hope that one day I will feel my heart pump adrenaline in support of the defense my territory or family. I wait for this day with patience as I eat another cheesy poof.

Bread Pudding

Bread Pudding, Bread Pudding,
you ambiguous rascal you,
claiming to be bread
and of the pudding family too,
when in actuality
you are neither of the two.

Your following is cult-like,
with few devoted fans
hoarding your deliciousness,
for no one understands
that your blatant lack of texture
is what makes you so grand.

You are cinnamon and raisin,
you are bread with crust attached,
you are swirls of mushy goodness
that simply can't be matched
providing satisfaction
batch after batch after batch.

Nirvana

His shirt is unbuttoned
his feet are bare
His mustache is still military regulation
has been for years.
He drags on a cigarette
holds a bottle of beer
while Connie Francis wails from
the kitchen of his yellow
trailer.
There are stains on his slacks
on his walls
his fingers
the floor.
Stains everywhere
ugly browns and greys
sticky and oily and
smelly
Many times he sat
in this very chair-
wanting
wanting
wanting
a friend
another cigarette
a cat
or one more bottle
of anything.
For years he wanted
more
than this.
More than disappointment
failure,
overdrawn accounts,
foreclosures,
parking tickets,
custody battles,
two week notices,
wives,
girlfriends,
restraining orders,
cuts
bruises
lottery tickets
and lunch meat sandwiches.
He is tired of wanting
and tonight
he will be
happy.

Math, God and Doughnuts

If I have an object which humans refer to as a doughnut and I place it next to a similiar object which humans refer to as a doughnut, then I have objects (plural) which humans refer to as doughnuts (plural). Thats all. We could leave it at that. No matter how many objects which humans refer to as doughnuts are involved, there are still just doughnuts (plural). But humans, being the evolved, higher level thinking creatures we are, took it one step further. "Let's label and organize." we said, like a new girlfriend says of a precious record collection after three days of living in your dingy apartment. "Let's say if you have this many, it is called ONE. If there is another doughnut involved, lets call it TWO." And it went like this, until it spiraled out of control, eventually expanding into a ridiculously complex concept of infinite possibilities.
But math only exists in the mind. There are never TWO doughnuts or SEVEN doughnuts, or X doughnuts + doughnuts squared - doughnuts divided by doughnuts. There is simply flour and water and a little yeast, formed into a shape similiar to the moon with a hole in the center (names of shapes are man made too, so I can't say CIRCLE)
and some starches and a whole bunch of oil. There are SOME doughnuts. Simply put, numbers have been assigned for our convenience.
But here's what boggles my mind. This system we have created which is math,as fake as it is, simply works. It is the only man made concept which has been proven to work every single time, in any combination, for anyone who applies it correctly (which unfortunately discludes me). If you don't believe me, try to make 2+2 equal anything other than 4. Why couldn't we get Pythagoras or Newton to come up with a health care plan while he was at it? Maybe some foreign policy? If anything, anything, anything, worked with the consistency of math, we would second guess it as actually being man made.
So for as much as I hate math, I am also in awe of math. I respect math. It teeters on the edge of being God-esque. It is omnipresent, omniscient, infinite, intangible, and ironically enough, also man made...like doughnuts.

My Routine

I get up
I take a shower
I take my son to school
I talk to my son's teacher
I like her
I drive to Starbucks
I hate Starbucks
I love coffee
I go to spanish class
I don't like spanish
I sit outside
I watch people
I don't like people
I write a little
I smoke a cigarette
I go to algebra class
I have no interest
I leave early
I go home
I clean the house
I mess the house
I fix supper
I hate that it takes an hour
I eat supper
I hate that it takes eight minutes
I skip dishes
I write a little
I put the kids to bed
I write a little
I go to bed
I wake up
I take a shower...

A Rarity

I see them and hear them
every second of every day.
they surround me
at the grocery store
and the gas station
spewing ashy grey words
and reeking of mediocrity
at best.
what nice weather we're having
the traffic is terrible
have you lost weight?
long time no see
who did the braves trade?
oh these gas prices
and it goes on
and on and on
and on until each one
becomes another and
their faces are like
humming chicken eggs.
some are brown and some
are big and some are extra large
grade A
but they all have the same goo
inside
and their humming is one off key
vibration giving me a life long
headache.
But every once in a while
I see a face
hear a face
and it speaks
a language I understand.
Every once in a while
the humming stops
and the eggs all go away
and I can communicate
with someone
using words
and thoughts.
Every once in a while.

Why?

To signify the piercing pain it took to push through math.
To represent duality of who I am inside, and what people see on the outside.
To prove to my students I am dedicated, stupid, and spontaneous.
Because I don't understand it.
Because I didn't think it through, and made a hasty decision.
To pass my final.
Because, at heart, I'm an idiot.