bought a yacht?went on one w/ Dadwatch out for manta rays! * Buying IPA and IPA checkswishing instead of IPA checks I'djust gotten another IPA. This was atthe second Thai restaurant in town (secondto Thai country). Mohinder fromHeroes was there. His name was Russ,but I kept calling him Raj. [12.15.2007] see the cbw response … Continue reading Yacht
Tag: dad
Foil’s War
Making it something other than that which it IS . . . surrounded by a crowd easy 2 do my own thang … Continue reading Foil’s War
Misc. Haiku 46-50
46
Royal Success Systems —
Convincing people
That their graffiti is art
47
Dog ears appear
From the heart of a sleeping ball —
Truck w/ trailer passes by
48
Drove out to the
Country for some air —
Coming back, the city ahaze
49 (after Kerouac)
In the Belleville house,
My father’s
Abominable yawns
50
Is my head back this far?
I was just now having
The night’s first beer
Shark Fishing
OK, pop,
paw-naw,
maybe if it weren’t
for you I’d be in that
ocean of debt, with
all the other sad fish,
fending off collecting
sharks, looking for
deeper water, where
I’d make my black silhouette
plain against a white sky—
too visible to the supperless
yellow eyes lurking below.
Or, maybe you’re the
cage I’m in, making me
a tourist, a sight-seer. Oh,
look at the sharks, paw,
they look hungry. Gee, they’re
gnawing on the bars of
this cage, paw. And then I
give two pulls on the line
and you reel me back up
and ask me what
I thought of it, and whether
I have a job yet. Still
looking, I say.
Or, maybe you’re the
boat, and you take me
deep-sea fishing, and
we catch one of those
sharks, one of those blood-
sniffing, two rows of
teeth, rough-sided,
cartilage-thick scavengers.
We fin ‘im for soup—
a delicacy I’m getting
a taste for— & then throw
‘im back over the side
and throttle off, you at
the helm, me at the bow
drinking a rum drink
and listening to
Jimmy Buffett on my
iPod. Take us into
harbor, pop, I yell
into the wind.
Let’s go have mom
cook us up some of that
shark fin soup,
maybe watch the ballgame,
knock back a few local brews.
Or, maybe you’re the
land. Maybe I’ve never even
been in the ocean; I’ve only
read about sharks in books.
You’ve got a big shark’s
jaw in your office and I’ve
reached up to feel the teeth—
so sharp I slice myself. When
my finger bleeds I suck on it
so I won’t get blood on
your office floor. Later,
when we go to the beach,
I won’t even go in the water,
though you tell me it’s fine.
Dad, I say, I’m not so sure;
sharks can smell blood from miles away.
But you reassure me,
honestly believing that sharks
don’t come in this close; that
there’s no food for them
around here—no seals, no pups,
no sea lions / no unlucky bastards
without you to go in first, to
give a leg, to sake them on
your back of blood, your scalp,
your good name, your trust—
and anything else I can get
off of you before you’re gone.
Vegas
Everyone debauched but everyone a virgin in some way. You can’t have tried everything, you can’t have tired of everything. Something to come back for, something to save for next time, when you’ve got more money, some savings to play with, and hopefully better luck.
There’s a premium on everything, and nothing is free. Not even luck. Luck costs money. Luck for a buck? Maybe the stars are free, but good luck seeing them through the neon broil. Maybe it’s time for a drink. Maybe it’s time to skim some winnings, to cash out, to double down, to parlay, to bet the house, to count some cards.
Good place to come for a birthday. One you don’t want to remember. Just cab doors opening and closing. Croupiers changing shifts, cleansing their hands of the table and all the bad luck that came with it. Cashiers sitting behind bars. Chips in their neat little stacks of hundreds or thousands. The peaks in the distance. The hotels standing and stretching in the hot, dry desert air, the sun not far away.
Gathering chips for their bets, trying to get free drinks, trying to get comped. A generous mix of Filipino, white, some blacks, you name it, a few Koreans, the new wealth Chinese—cabbies called them whales because they were big fish, big betters. Old and older. A bunch of kids crawling around doing god knows what, more likely to get kicked out of the casinos than anyone else because they don’t bet.
Mafia types—Skyball Chibelli and Baba, hoping the croupiers don’t look too close at their money. Cabbies who went to high school here. Eighties music, light shows, five-dollar minimums, champagne bottles, sixes and eights, Manhattans, Coronas, the hot sun, no clouds, bellmen looking for tips, towel boys looking for tips, everyone looking for tips and some people giving them. The whole place like an octopus but with more arms, looking for anyway to get its hands on your money, and when it does—bang! it pops its barb into you like an unexpected sting ray, whether you are an expert or not. Here, no one is an expert. Experts get beat up and know better...
Vegas never closes...
Calls on 9/11/2001
I got seven calls that day. Brook, 12:15 am. Dad at 8:57 am, which woke me up. "The terrorists are at work," he said. "You better take a look. It's pretty bad." He was stifling tears, sobs. Ray from work at 12:21p. Then again at 12:24p. He came over and we hit Shayne and talked … Continue reading Calls on 9/11/2001
The Bowflex
Coffee at ten has to be a large part of why I’m up right now. But I’m also up because I want to be up. I imagine someone walking in here and saying, “Is it the coffee, John?” I’d say, “The coffee and a whole lot else.”
I was lying in bed and all sorts of thoughts—memories I hadn’t come across in a while—were keeping me awake. I thought about how I sold my Bowflex workout machine—probably right around this time last year—for $500 cash. It was my parents’ money really. I had bought the Bowflex on a credit card that I wasn’t funding. And I’m just so goddamned sorry that I’ve gotten this far off track and all I can think about is how my parents are seeing this situation.
Their child with promise and potential. What is he doing with his life? Not squandering it anymore than I already have. I’m just so sorry for myself and I know that’s now way to go about it but I was recalling that Bowflex transaction. With half of the cash I bought about two ounces of freeze-dried fungi. Just pathetic, just pathetic. And, of course, to whom can I confess this? Those who already know haven’t realized that they care...
Continue with essay...My Father on an Elevator With George Steinbrenner
Outside, in the slop,
horses run, glistening
with rain and sweat.
***
My father knows a guy
who has horses, a trainer,
and seats at club level.
Dad presses a button to go up,
and enters the car with three others.
Two who are bodyguards soon get off.
Now it’s just them inside, where
matter comes together with other matter.
Did Dad make bad wardrobe choices that morning?
No. Both wear sport coats, collared shirts, no ties.
Dad has on navy blue Ballys,
from his Puerto Rican honeymoon.
Got them shined at Lambert Airport,
tipped the guy a $2 bill.
But what does a Sox fan
say to The Boss in intimate quarters?
***
“I said nothing about baseball
and talked only about horses,
where he and his sister went to college—
Williams, Skidmore, etc.”
(My father a Dartmouth man himself.)
“He was very cordial.”
***
“I met a man who had
a horse running in the next race,”
he said, once home, as we played guess who.
“I asked him how his horses
were doing, but not about the failings
of his Japanese pitcher!”
JBR.com 