Haiku for High School
In High School he tried
So hard to become a cool kid
part of the in crowd
Because of a girl
he hoped she would just date him
she liked someone else
Someone not worthy
Much worse than no one at all
He's telling himself
Getting in the group
Means she will see he's cool too
Worthy of dating
That's not how it works
This he found out the hard way
at the house party
He burst in the room
thinking he could still save her
A bad idea
She had just been saved
her virginity not lost
It was set aside
He looked like a fool
All of them made fun of him
so he left the group
Cliques are just like cults
Those so called cool kids all suck
he tells himself now
Lesson, the hard way
he'll never save anyone
when he's lost himself
Herd of Pigs
The dreams only come some nights, but always leave a strong impression. Never the same, but always similar in nature. At first they were baffling in a benignly worrisome way. Not quite a nightmare, but certainly unsettling. The place is always different, sometimes occurring in a strange wooded forest, other times a teeming city that seems familiar by way of a recognizable landmark but not much else. In any case, the context remains constant.
So, in every version, Ralph starts in a comfortable place, a familiar place, like home perhaps. But then, for whatever obtuse reason not entirely clear, he must venture out to find someone in order to deliver a message. That is always where things get complicated. Because on the way to deliver the message, he gets increasingly farther from finding whomever he is trying to find and share it with. Getting lost to the point where sharing the message is not nearly as important as trying to find a way back.
The problem always starts with asking for directions. He has odd encounters with an ever changing cast of characters that point him in the supposedly right direction. Unfortunately, he only gets more lost, going increasingly wayward, off the beaten path.
They all seem so helpful! Obscure bit part actors from cinema whose names are hard to recall, the long dead headmaster from the academy, the new postmaster, a young girl he'd chatted with briefly at the market only yesterday, so many others. They all confidently give directions. "Just head up there and turn left, you can't miss it." That sort of thing.
Unfortunately they all direct him farther and farther from his original purpose. At some point the feeling of being too lost to continue is what will wake him. On opening his eyes, he typically takes a brief moment to realize that, no, there isn't a hole worn in the soles of his shoes.
At first Ralph assumed the dreams were about trying to find Piggy. During these nocturnal walkabouts, he routinely meets the living and those that passed. So why not wrap everything into a tidy interpretation that made sense even if it didn't offer any consolation? Ralph finally eventually decided that not knowing might be better. What would he say to Piggy anyway?
"Sorry" would not do much good for anyone at this point anyway.
Realizing that actually helped offset the feeling of being lost. Why not enjoy the journey instead of worrying about the outcome? Getting lost isn't so bad if you find an adventure and meet interesting characters along the way. So today, with that in mind, Ralph smiles as he rubs the Sandman's grit from his eyes.
He rises from the bed. It is chilly, but the sun will rise soon. There is time to sleep some more, but getting a head start on the day makes sense. From his last interview he knows the company will offer the management role. More pay for less hours. Sounds great, but after sleeping on it, Ralph has decided otherwise. He wants to stick with the union to protect his benefits. A management position doesn't offer that security. Besides, he needs to stay with his crew. They need him because he keeps the herd in line. He could always change his mind in the future.
He just hopes they will understand when he delivers the message.
(This is a prologue for a sequel to "Lord of the Flies". According to the American Library Association, "Lord of the Flies" is the eighth-most frequently banned and challenged book in the nation)
The Bartender
Finding the right words, never too easy. Unless you are born with the gift of gab. But what's that worth if all that spills out is just a bunch of practiced bs, charming lies, or endless pitches?
Nothing.
Worth less than a dime that wouldn't get you a cup of coffee much less a cheap cocktail in a dive bar at unhappy hour.
Right?
She approaches with a curious smile. She gets eight hours a day. That's some serious practice.
"Would you like another?" She says.
"No thank you."
It definitely was not going to be enough. Not... even... close.
The Night March
Darting quickly out from a shadow's cover, pausing to assess broken terrain littered with detritus. Shards of a green bottle. Wet leaves rotting with mold. Jagged stones and fetid loam. Then, a mad scramble.
Stop. Assess. Find cover. The ant's movement, chaotic yet purposeful, as it scrambles to meet others on a path marked well with venomous pheromones. As they pass along the way, they share the news, communicating dark intentions, ravenous hungers incited along the way.
Drawing closer to the rotting corpse of the child, still undiscovered by its own kind, the ant decides to enter in the ear.
All The Time In The World
Ask any Gypsy worth her crystal ball. Seeing into the future is not all it is cracked up to be. In fact, I would take the clear 20/20 of hindsight any day.
Even though, let's face it. I mean...
RIGHT NOW.
Let's just pause for a minute to think about it.
Looking back at what happened a minute ago, yesterday, years before, even back before time was anything more than a matter of light and dark and light again, there is no clarity in it at all. Just recollections that become murkier by the minute, more faded and distant with each... and every... passing... second...
Because, like the cataract covered eyes of an old crone whose alzheimers has finally reduced memories to haunting visions, looking back means looking forward to nothing more than a good hunch about what might happen... next.
Like the dinosaurs. It might be an educated guess, but it is still just a good hunch about what sort of cataclysmic event resulted in their running out of time. They heading off into the sunset of extinction, where time is nothing but a speculation and a point of occurance, lost in the infinity of other moments gathered and tossed to eternity. But at least that is something to go on. At least speculating about it is a way to pass the time.
At least...
That might provide some insight into the future. Because anything at all would be better than knowing tomorrow, the next day, a year from now, a million generations from now. Those moments in the future will come but seeing them coming feels like being tied to a train track. There you are... tied down to the inevitable...
Because this train is always on time. Every car it pulls filled with your dreams and aspirations, with a caboose of longing and hope hitched to the back. You lie between it and the station. No way to stop it... as it rolls... closer... and closer still, where you feel the rattle of the track and hear the humdrum of death about to roll over you.
So all you can really do is look down at your watch. Guess how much time is left, if any, before everything... past... present... future... all are passed.
As time rolls on.
Hard Day at the Orifice
{Forward}
“So…”
The hesitation always lingers. A pregnant pause where everyone stands around wondering who the father might be
“… how did you end up in porn?”
If people actually still talk to me after they find out I did porn then that takes the lead as the first question to ask. However, usually the question drives the conversation more typically to an assertion.
“You don’t seem like somebody that would do porn.” I hear before I try getting a word in edgewise between strict condemnation and leering curiousity, “Well, that’s a story to tell”.
The thing is: Most people think porn is something people crash into at the end of a dead end, a crumpled heap of broken humans looking for the cheap insurance of a quick buck, making false claims of happiness for the ruin of their lives.
But me? I went into this with my eyes open, with direction and purpose. Marching to the beat of an unrecognizable drummer tapping a slick jazzy riff I went whooping and hollering over the hill and into the fray, looking for adventure, naked not only to the camera but also disrobed of the trappings of education or the cloth of experience that might equip me to the task. Instead, armed only with a keen sense of the absurd and a jagged smile on my face I charged in ready to confront my kinks and conquer my sexual insecurities.
I fought hard. And I fancy myself more a lover than a fighter so that wasn't easy.
To survive, I learned something new and useful every day kept in check and balance by what I didn’t have a clue about every other day. But making fantasies come true is not an easy business. You really have to put some foreplay into it.
So, to thrive, I learned how to perform and developed a wide range of important life skills.
I am not just talking about perfecting the perilous “Flying Anal” technique.
I grasped how to stay in a business where the product is free as rain. I managed to raise kids when everything around me bore the stamp “adults only” in red scarlet letters. I taught Princess Leia how to make porn in a galaxy far, far away. Dodged bullets both figuratively and literally. Like how to stay in business when the dude that owes a few hundred thousand decides to get a sex change, take all your cash, and live on a desert island. Of course, where would I be now if I never figured out guns and orgies never mix well?
I learned a few other things that might... ahem… come in handy…no porn pun double-entendre intended that is, when life gets weird. But weird is interesting and that was the best advice my mother ever gave, besides the bit about not letting girls tell me I have to marry if I got them pregnant, she advised “Make sure you live an interesting life.”
And doing porn has certainly been a matter of taking the scenic route, I mean, besides the obvious. Along the way, the spectacle was interesting enough that I enjoyed the great fortune of being written about by three best-selling authors. Evan Wright wrote about me before his “Generation Kill” ended up as a best seller turned HBO series; Eric Schlosser was doubling up on the success of “Fast Food Nation” when he included a bit about yours ever so truly in his “Reefer Madness” muckraker; and David Foster Wallace got a kick out my schtick in “Consider the Lobster”. But each only chipped off enough of the iceberg to make merely a sno-cone confection, sweet to the taste, but only one station in the magnificent Las Vegas epic buffet of my life.
So, rather than have the tale told through the eyes, from the squinting and judgmental, to the winking and knowing, even those staring blankly sometimes in disbelief, the time has come… again, no porn pun intended, to deliver the money shot. Shoot my wad. Tell the whole story, compete with the shootings, the groans, the sighs, the white socks, and the hot lights showing every little thing for better or worse.
Because the next thing I usually hear is “What do you tell your kids about what you do?”
So, this is what I would tell them.
“Lead an interesting life. Just remember the first step in an interesting life is the one that takes you right over a cliff. Let me tell you why from experience...”
Gathering Moss
If a rolling stone can gather no moss
then time to explain that to Brian Jones
his stone is now an emerald green cross
sitting atop what is left of his bones
now turned chartreuse by the passage of time
the rootless sphagnum gathers around them
left to their own devices and made to climb
by sending out tiny tendrils that hem
his granite round where the rain water pools
truth be told a rolling moss gathers rocks
those who say otherwise are the same fools
trying the right keys on all the wrong locks
forget trying hard to move like Jagger
for moss will always soften the swagger
Bridges (in need of repair)
I broke the bridge
when I stood on it
the rivets ripped from the beam
the roaring of cars
like the raging river below
rushing past
trying to make it across
in time, but swept away
because current events have an undertow
that pull us all in
like the time when I asked her to dance
and she said she was waiting for somebody
some one else, anybody but me
so I didn't sweep her off her feet
only myself, because when I slipped
I broke the bridge
Black Sabbath Hootenany
The pyre flames flare with an August wind's gust
it stokes them higher to make the bones shrink
become brittle and then turns them to dust
while a dance of death brings all to the brink
of ecstatic union, live with death, heed
the drum with its skin pulled taut by sinew
the spirit in pine smoke rising now freed
to shimmy, shake, roll into a life anew
while those below glow by the fire's ember
raise their hands, lift their hearts then sing their praise
so thankful for what they can remember
a count of beats in a rhythm of days
For all that has been, what will never be
we dance with death tonight in reverie
Whipped
She plays the Alannis when she's angry
ball bustin' non stop cussing hissy fit
pissed; full steam ahead, she'll sting like a bee
say what she means, mean the way she says it
that barb is planted, full of hot venom
to get her point across with searing pain
Yes it burns, boy, it hurts something handsome
because the truth hurts worst when it's so plain
But the Morissette, well that just adds salt
rubs it in the wound, she's just merciless
until no choice but to admit the fault
because to not would be just perilous
If he hears that song it will be too soon
He knows what's coming when he hears that tune