Hardly Strictly

me the black seals a few of us in our stoned drunken glorious euphoric acid baked pod encapsulated within among amidst the multitude we gather in the meadow gather together to celebrate to immerse ourselves

to listen learn participate

doctor john having sailed his psychofunkadelicious whitebelly blacksoul riverboat self all the way here from that french confederate creole haven our majestic lady with a perverse jambalaya of petticoats rye whiskey french reds latex and blindfolds

the city of new orleans

doctor john having come to join us all in reverie and merriment come to join us all in these hardly strictly shenanigans of bluegrass by the bay deep within the whimpering fog long since defeated by the early october sunshine

right place right time

and we the black seals a loose confederacy of dunces of former adherents of the faithful grown older with our aches and pains but looser with our morals and attitude

comfortable in a certain aura of what the fuck that tends to ward the harsh from our mellow

and for that we are grateful

and we the black seals who many a year ago came together about around a bottle of black seal rum imported all the way from that colonial home of knee length shorts and sock garters grown from some rock out in the atlantic ocean imported to our baghdad by the bay

oh what a world

what a world

a gathering around this bottle not out of any committed love for black seal or even rum in general

but rather simply from the inspiration of the moment

one pill makes you smaller

and we the black seals we now gather many years later here in our decrepit presence we now gather to express our love and admiration for doctor john our momentary journey into the heart of blacklit darkness a delving into sunday morning irreverence doctor john our own personal jesus of the hour our own personal satan

god is love is jesus is satan is god is love is jesus is satan

and we the black seals we who yes openly practice idolatry of the most blasphemous and perverse manner we shake our hips we wave our arms we do the funky chicken

we play air guitar air banjo air piano

we play air fiddle with a grin and a giggle

and we give thanks for our sacred church of the temporary respite because regular life won’t let us behave this way

and we pursue our own personal vices be they weed women or wine

and we oooh we ahhh as a big pink balloon comes bouncing back through the crowd launched from some amorphous virginal birth canal up near the stage up it pops bops floats

guided by its own faith its own fate

anonymous hands outstretched rising up above the mass of shaggy waggy bags of flesh and hair jiggling wiggling fingers dancing

here is the church
here is the steeple
open the doors
and see all the people

big pink balloon bouncing bopping

the people wanting only to touch his garbs they say oh they do say he has cured the sick raised the dead

and on the third day the big pink balloon bouncing bopping a gift from the goddess herself she who so loves the world that she farts bubbles of balloons spews them upon her worshipers and on the third day her spawn settles upon a sharpened nail

bursts

with a pop

just like that cycle of life

big pink balloon bops and pops its bloody remains plummeting to earth only to be picked up by an errant seagull who swoops down leaving a jet stream of biologic jetsam and anal jism upon the knit cap lidded cowboy hipsters from the mission an avian packrat fascinated captured by the shiny bauble that is this fragment of latex

who flies away carries it over the hill soaring with its mates over the presidio over crissy field over fort mason along the coast down to fisherman’s wharf circling down to land amidst the fatcat sealions piled one upon the other on the dock at pier thirty nine piled up in some orgiastic slithering and braying bacchanal

one of whom snaps at this avaricious avifauna specimen startles shakes confidences the shredded corpse of our savior the big pink balloon flips flies up into the air

a slow mo tumble cartoonishly animated by sparkles of salty sea sweat

snagged on either end by two other feathery cousins who pull tug stretch jesus armstrong across the span of its invisible cross that we bear

till it snaps yet again our buster keyton savior flip flopping air amoeba tumbling pink cotton candy only to land within the random trumpeting snout of some bubbling bull sea lion

in mid coitus

its rigormortic aquatic cock let loose upon his harem a finny fuck for any and all

who gulps swallows screams a horribly murdered prostitute pre-ghostly wail rolls over his rooster pointing sunward tongue flailing into an effervescent gurgle

a gagging

a sudden stillness

a still silence

a blubbery cock cooked cadaver surrounded by panicked females

witnessed by a towheaded minnesotan all of two and a half years on this here earth who up until this moment had been laughing and pointing at the silly seals while sitting comfortably in his daddy’s arm but who now also

sits still and silent

scarred

who we know will grow up this scene etched in his memory a cave painting of satirical savagery that will haunt him in his loneliness as he ages that will keep him awake at night force him drive him to a career as a midnight to dawn disc jockey of shocking proportions in the northern lake region near the canadian border pandering to anti-immigrant sympathies those who loathe the pasty skinned canadian interlopers who sneak down here to the land of milk and honey to the land of opportunity

to the home of the brave

to become one of god’s select

a fallen saul blinded by the expiring otariidae on his trip to damascus many years before a sinner who we know will grow up to seek desperately needed help from the easy high of cocaine

who we know will grow up to go from cocaine to rehab

from rehab to alcohol and nicotine and back to rehab

from rehab to jesus to crystal meth and back to rehab

from rehab to four day a week freudian analysis and ecstasy and enlightenment to wandering the land across the plains across the mountains across the desert clad only in a burlap robe and carrying a bowl to accept alms and morsels provided by the faithful

to wander through the crowds the committed we the hardly strictly devoted who believe in the father the son the doctor with a feather in his cap

we the black seals

we who are grateful we who are blessed in our stoned drunken glorious euphoric acid baked pod encapsulated within among amidst the multitude who gather in the meadow who gather together to celebrate to immerse ourselves

to listen learn participate and all that

i know a girl

i know a girl well yeah he says with that grin that toothy dirty old man grin he says yeah i guess really she is all woman

i know a woman

this woman i know she give me a wink when i say this this woman she give me a wink because she know i know she plays both sides of the fence she know i can see both sides this woman she is torn nee perhaps stretched between betwixt that communal world that peace love and tie dye the universe will provide save the world loose skirts and cotton tops that expose all that bossily loveliness of the hippie

and that pouty faced green purple tequila sunrise colored hair middlefinger to the air stern nihilist kiss my ass fuck you fuck your mother fuck your sister fuck your dog and the horse you came in on combat boot wearing yeah i’m talking to you punker

and that most uncomfortable middle ground of corporate vice presidency where they just don’t want to know they just don’t want to care

i mean that hippie thing i mean it’s not like she’s that old hippie hanging out down by the statue in the panhandle the old hippie that maybe might have touched his tongue to tab a few too many times

might have got on that magic bus might have kind of forgot that he got on that bus next things he knows that bus driver of the mind he’s nudging you in the consciousness in the middle awareness with the toe of his boot he’s saying the bus driver he’s saying

hey buddy last stop

just like my friend fred with no hair on his head he used to get kicked off the five fulton all the time that was after he got kicked out of his apartment way back when way back in the day when i first met him turns out that night i met him he was being asked to leave his place

fred he just didn’t know it at the time

i mean we both me and fred we both knew these guys who went to college with me these guys e and m and and these guys e and m and a few others chrono and stenks and black-man and a few assorted stragglers we all played cards we played cards every wednesday night started playing middle of freshman year kept it up til we graduated

except black-man he never graduated perhaps he gave too much gave more than he could afford

and e and m they used to have this little business they used to collect package and distribute via the official postal service of these here united states of america certain illegal contraband acquired by rather questionable and most certainly unsavory means sent from atlanta georgia air mail to brockport new york boxes upon boxes filled with lovely lovelies both natural and manufactured they didn’t discriminate they were businessmen they discussed transactions over speaker phone during said wednesday night poker game

quantities strains brands prices shipping aliases shipping logistics rented mail boxes

yes quite the enterprising young men misters e and m and fred with no hair on his head

and i graduated and moved to san francisco and fred with no hair on his head he moved to san francisco and either e or m one of them sent post cards to us both sent to me and sent to fred with no hair on his head yes even then at the young age of twenty one twenty two fred he had no hair on his head and so yeah we each got this post card making the intro

and we gave each other a call he called me i called him i forget who called whom first but we met at this bar over on geary and masonic because fred heard it was the greatest and with fred as i came to know fred with fred everything was the fucking greatest

man that weed was the greatest man that burger was the greatest man that weekend was the greatest the fucking greatest man i gotta tell you

and we met at this bar at geary and masonic it was called the pig and something some irish bar yeah go figure some irish bar on geary it’s not there any more but we met at this bar

we were having beers fred had just come from barbecuing at his place and well it seems while we were sitting around drinking beers and getting to know each other and telling stories like twenty year olds tell stories and getting drunk and laughing and yelling in the bar like assholes who just got legal and

it seems that while all this knee slapping good time all this revelry all this merriment trending toward ribaldry was going on whilst we bellied up to the bar and drank pint after pint with a random jameson’s woven into the order seems that old fred well he had forgotten to completely put out the fire had neglected to douse the coals like old smokey had been asking him since he was but a wee one spinning his dreidle back in westchester and

those back decks down in the mission they can get kind of windy down there those little whirlwinds coming whipping down off the hill and that little fucking hibachi it just danced across the dried up redwood planks and lit that thing on fire and

the fire department got summoned via the magic of nine one one and since dear old fred with no hair on his head was not home since old fred was out getting drunk with me since old fred was otherwise indisposed the firemen in all their finest rubber suit helmeted keppele and hoses our heroes had no choice but to take ax to door

chop chop

and fred with no hair on his head in the early hours of the morning he returned home to yellow tape criss crossed and up and down his door or rather what was left of his door and his landlord who patiently explained that the place was now uninhabitable because well the firemen had felt it necessary to spray water through his apartment to the deck and

maybe it would be best for fred to find another place to live

and so fred he moved to his brothers house his brother who was older and wiser and had moved out to san francisco years before and had married and had become a very successful salesman of the highest regard and whose wife was a bit of an agoraphobic and she rarely left the house

and yeah i forgot to mention that fred well he was unemployed at the time

and fred and sister in law well let’s just say that not only was sister in law agoraphobic and rarely left the house well she was a bit compulsive about the cleanliness of her own personal hoosegow and our dear fred in the midst of his unemployment felt perfectly fine simply hanging around the house getting stoned and drinking beers and watching television and talking on the phone to his friends back east talking about what a great set up he had and well he was the oscar of this unlikely relationship and sister in law she had words with hubby and

fred moved in to my place shortly thereafter

and slept on a palette on the floor in the living room my dog she liked to cuddle up with him at night i’d come walking in before going to work going to take the dog for a walk there they were i felt bad splitting them up and i lived on fulton street a one bedroom flat near the museums and the five futon it came right by the house and fred

he’d go out drinking take the five fulton home well back to my place and just about every time he’d pass out he’d wake up out by the beach the bus driver kicking him in the ribs saying

hey buddy hey pal

last stop

it’s not like she’s that old hippie no

and

i mean it’s not like she’s all sid and nancy either she’s not some frail pale white punker chick listless and uncaring and anarchist and talking smack

and doing a lot of heroin

it’s not like she’s that stringy haired brunette who moved in with who lived with n b after college that would drape herself over him like curtains like a bathrobe

n b and she after college they drifted into the world of not giving a shit

unbelievers agnostics

whose art was all about giving up not surrendering but simply fucking letting go

they’d go to shows but they didn’t mosh they didn’t slam they stood on the side and grooved and critiqued and n b wrote cynical reviews rants polemics for the local underground newspaper for pennies a word

and she would paint using only black oils and white oils and any shade that she could concoct using black and white oils

it was all so dobie gillis stereotypical that

yeah they got bored and

yeah they floundered a bit

toying with politics

but the anarchist party in atlanta georgia was not exactly a growing phenomena in the reagan eighties and so

yeah they had to drift into doing a little heroin

snorting it at first maybe chasing the dragon if they got hold of some good choice black tar then they popped it then they hell what the fuck then they just shot up heroin what the fuck

and then they had no money

because n b he spent all his trust fund that went pretty quickly and they moved to a place down in that no man’s land near the marta line between georgia state and inman park and they tried to start a little business on the dregs of his trust fund and that failed

because they liked to do a lot of heroin

and they started this cleaning service

and they would clean out houses

but that kind of ended when they got caught casing the places coming back later and stealing stuff

and then they found a very creative outlet they called it

shopping

hey what you doing man well dude we’re going shopping this afternoon

yeah they would hit high end department stores shoplift incredibly expensive things and then return them the next day for cash refunds

because they liked to do a lot of heroin

and they were serious punkers and n b would put on headphones and play his bass to the stooges late into the night and smoke fag after fag and she would talk about how fucked up the system was how the president was a fucking faggot crook and how the fucking hippies were faggots and how the fucking panda bear at the national zoo was a faggot and how the faggots were faggots

because they liked to do a lot of heroin

and then they just disappeared

and then one day they just weren’t there then one day they just didn’t show up

they just disappeared

and

he says no

he says no it’s not like she’s that listless punker no she’s not

he says yeah

i know a girl well yeah he says with that grin that toothy dirty old man grin he says yeah i guess really she is all woman

i know a woman

this woman i know she give me a wink when i say this this woman she give me a wink because she know i know she plays both sides of the fence she know i can see both sides this woman she is torn nee perhaps stretched between betwixt

those two worlds

he say yeah he say she fight so hard to touch both sides she try so hard to keep in touch with both sides maybe every now and then actually getting down in that puddle and wallering around getting all dirty

maybe mixing up with the dead kennedys

maybe nibbling on some marijuana tainted chocolate toffee till she gets the nods

but hey he says

but hey

she still

fighting the man

fighting from becoming the man

goddamn he say goddamn she put up quite a fight

so she don’t get stuck in that vice presidency of corporate america middle

those shoes though they be hot they way they put that wiggle in her walk the way they put that shake in her shimmy

and he say and he grin you know how i dig those starched white shirts pulled all tight pulled all snug across those sugary cones of delight high beams up and bright and blinding

but she don’t want she just dread that middle ground that most uncomfortable middle ground of corporate vice presidency where they just don’t want to know they just don’t want to care

he say yeah best simply to get on the bus and disappear