4-8-3
While my oatmeal’s cooking I’ll start this thing off.
Wait a second. I just heard someone call me weird.
I guess I could’ve imagined it, or maybe it was telepathy. I don’t know for sure.
Anyway, this promises to be about as fun as an ass-probe with a serving-fork.
This’ll be my story.
Nobody was innocent, so none of the names’ll need to be changed.
I hope the experience for me is more like projectile vomit than dry heaves.
Pen just died, right on time for me to eat.

First off, there are a couple ground rules. Some for me, some for you.
I intend to write down every ugly nugget of this bizarre tale, so mom if you don’t want to hear it, stop reading now. Might not be a bad idea.
It’ll be like the time when I was 16 and had to fess up to having caught the crabs… but times a million and a ½. By the way, I subsequently caught the crabs 5 more times – or at least I thought I had. They’re hard to see.
Sometimes I wasn’t sure but napalmed ‘em anyway. Once you’ve had the crabs, you damn well never want ‘em again. They’re hard to tolerate.
I intend to write this shit down and keep movin’ ahead. I will not be re-reading what I’ve written. I’ll forbid myself to proofread or re-check. And when, if ever, I type the motherfucker into a computer it’s goin’ down word 4 word. Nonlinear and scatterbrained et alia.
You should know that although I’m trying to tell my story and stickin’ to it…it is still just a story. Reason being that the English language, or any other that I know of, is not perfect, not infinite, cannot capture actual events. So, this is more like a surrealist interpretation. Whatever.
Jesus I need to stop for a second. This isn’t going to be any fun. Cigarette break.

Where am I now?
I’m in the bedroom of my apartment at 2355 Griffith Park Blvd., LA, CA, 90039. I’m sitting on my bed. The blanket below me is a virulently ugly shade of pea-green. The fabric is scientifically formulated ‘poly-something’. My older brother Rob “loaned” this pilgrim-blanket to me when I moved out of my college dormitory in ’91. He found it on the grassy hill of Scot’s Stadium after a University of Virginia football game. I like it.
There’s a cigarette burn to my right. I put that there probably in about ’93 or so. Burned a hole right through it. It turns out poly-something fabric is not impermeable to intense heat.
I’m leaning against a rust-orange colored ‘husband’ – what a bad name for furniture – my friend Amyt gave me when I turned 20. He also gave me a bottle of vodka.
Looking forward I see my accumulated possessions that made it out here to CA in the Ford.
There’s an old black bookcase I’ve known since childhood. Its twin is in my parent’s house in Morehead City, NC. This one stands filled with 2 ½ months worth of crap including:
books – a couple by Depoch Shoprah, some sci-fi, and some historical fiction a la Richard Sharpe – good read those.
Receipts, bank machine offal – didn’t balance my ? book for a month and ½ ‘cause I just didn’t give a fuck.
Writing pads with to do lists, lyrics and album title ideas – the latest: ‘soft gee’.
A tin my Ford travel alarm clock came in which I keep condoms in – I buy Trojan Magnums and wink at the check out girl when I buy ‘em – that is a lie – I don’t wink.
A notebook I used last year when I was crusading for a record deal for my band Lystra – then a duo, or ‘two-piece’.
A mostly empty packet of musty smelling incense.
A check from Wolfgang Puck Catering – my employer – that I haven’t cashed yet but did sign already underneath the warning: We’re all goin’ ta hell.

The table stands (a bookcase is a kind of table I guess) about as high as my knee – I’m 6’5” with shoes on. The paint is black and worn off around the edges showing the dirty brown of the wood grain. Today, you go out and buy a painted bookcase and below the paint, guess what, crappy particleboard bet you your next good idea.
My parents must have had this in the living room or their room as we 3 kids were growing up because it reached old age without Batman stickers or racing decals. We three: Rob oldest now 34, me middle now 31, Sam youngest now 29.
Just a guess – I’m overly descriptive. I’ll circle the nouns and highlight the verbs for those impatient readers. Just fuckin’ with ya.
Atop it – we all know what “it” is don’t we, sits my travel clock. I bought it for $11 on sale at the Ford dealership. Admittedly it was an impulse buy. The clock unfolds itself. You just push a button and it stands itself up. Cool. It has a calculator function and can tell time in 8 different time zones. Just in case I happen to find myself in Rio de Janeiro I can hit a button and BOOM! Accurate time. Made in China.

Also made in China is the one-liter thermos standing beside it. It is wrought of silvery metal and has a black plastic top. I bought two of them. I brew the loose tea my mom bought for me from the health food co-op in them. English Breakfast.
When I went up to pay for my thermoses the two girls at the discount store checkout were kind of flirty. I paid by credit card, and when I had to sign on the sci-fi plastique surface with the “pen”, I just scribbled something down.
The girl, the brunet - like I remember - asked, “Is that your signature?” As if I was just warming up or something.
I went on about how the credit card wasn’t really mine. Joggin’ their ears you see. Blah blah, hah hah, etc. She looked at my DL, that’s drivers license for you who didn’t guess, and said how I looked a lot…how did she put it…worse now.
I was unshaven, probably with dark circles around my eyes etc. I said the picture was my evil twin. The blond – there was no blond – said she had an evil twin and the two girls and I kind of chuckled. “Like Superman” one of them said.
As I was walking out they girlishly laughed and I heard one of them ask, “Do you think that was Superman?”
Piss break.