Impaired driving on acid through Topanga Canyon Clubbed on the head with a bottle at Raji’s bar These are knuckleheaded memories that I can’t remember (or maybe it wasn’t a bottle) Scouring the streets near Sunset trying to find my car
Leering at teenage cholas lying on the beach (or were they telling the truth) We were fabulous freaks in a city of freaks Doctor Hunter. Doctor Hunter.
A conventional relationship would have been fatal We stared after times together at the stars on her ceiling I suspected and she knew that this couldn’t possibly last A singular time she shared with me a feeling (a feeling all about me, or so I like to believe that it was)
L.A., she might not be a lady, but L.A. loves you (that takes the pressure off) L.A. loves you (everyone has an arrangement) L.A. loves you (you came into this world alone) L.A. loves you (and that’s the way you’re going out)
I dined with a witch near Melrose Who delighted in agreeing with me That under my particular circumstance Therapy was useless and free (for one as advanced as myself, an innate natural healer I was)
Ill-advised lesbian conversion attempt A phalanx of third world relations I met Among non-female experiments he was her second But the California-style protrusion she had not reckoned
Dangerous tequila consumption Inoculated from blue-eyed persuasion (and your promise of eventual freedom) A confluence of luck and indifference Cash trumps pleas and emotions invasion
L.A., she might not be a lady, but L.A. loves you (a coke bunny for the ages) L.A. loves you (translating in a tight spot) L.A. loves you (here’s my secret humidor) L.A. loves you (El Senor Fortunado) Inhaling beer and beans where… no fags are allowed. Could you possibly be less interesting than that… New York crowd Of film school graduates Determined to be the next Orson Wells But she loves you anyway Step into the revolving door Or enter through the pipeline of your choice You may disappear into the glittering hills Or ride the bus back home bitter and ruined This town loves a winner Come back when you’re ready to be one
Oft-Replicated Program By Holmes
Resurrection inevitable What a pity A more stylish reincarnation Is what I had hoped for
With effectively limitless computing power and storage capacity Why not catalogue all possible streams of consciousness? Eventually the processing will result In the cosmic accident that was, is, or shall be you and me
What future life form would find me interesting? I haven’t the foggiest They can store my remarkable sequence of doings Next to those of a particularly self-absorbed garden snail
But still I am grateful for this instant in time A luxurious perception of a self that is readily differentiable From oft-replicated programs That swarm about me
Better not kill yourself You’ll have something like you to reckon with Sometime Down the road
Money is My God, but I Wish I Were an Atheist By Holmes
Another modern casualty Buying all that is not free We have nothing and all to show For time and money that were thrown In lieu of living free and clear Hopping trains and drinking beer A sturdy oar was what I picked FICO score propels the ship Soul ground Conan-like on a stone To service debts we now owe Lines of credit anticipate Purchases that just can’t wait Slaving for a god, currency No respect have I for he Or she, or it, please let me add Faithless faith, may I recant
Nostalgic For the Days of Less Convenient Travel By Holmes
With blond hair and bowl haircut dressed in a tiny blue blazer and introduced to the captain by an indescribably alluring and for now unobtainable goddess he wondered at the skill and heroic confidence of pilots able to watch so many dials and work so many levers, switches and throttles to bring to places regular people like him, his parents and brother -- this must be jet set -- and now in receipt of his own American Airlines wings pinned to his lapel he returned to his seat. What could be bad about this?
Kids having traveled to the West Coast returned to school in the fall armed (to proportions of epic coolness) with the latest slang and expressions from California. Grandparents seemed fearful of long distance telephony. He attributed it to Depression Era generational artifacts and in those days the elders still preferred to write letters or go together to the garden for a sniff of the tomatoes or maybe fish for a few hours at the canal. Such things could be traveled to and enjoyed with so little effort.
Proliferating franchises McShit in Bangkok Exporting entertainment Spanish-language Simpsons on the tely in Granada, ES But still… striking out on foot into the poor areas of far away cities could bring swarms of children delighted to see a strange and relatively towering foreigner who would let them swing from his arm while not breaking stride and most likely spare candy or some coins. These glorious frolics required naturally… a measure of inconvenience.
And to think… rather, it was purely instinctual for him to flee intravenous life. What strange and idiotic breed of man temporarily fasts from ubiquitous luxury as tourist of all things in pursuit of experiential experiencing of ever more elusive (and preferably non-lethal) regional differences longing for the less convenient days of a past he never could have known and for an unknowable future where a calling to roam will not be answered lightly.
