fox - s-s-s-single bed
i fear this video has triggered a paradigm shift into an alternative psychological universe of which i may regretfully never return from
this beard’s for lili January 9, 2008
two years ago, 1/15/6:
though an unshaven face is not an uncommon look for me, i’ve never intentionally grown an actual beard, until now. my face fuzz spurts out at irregular lengths, straying in every which direction in an asymmetrical pattern of obnoxious patches. the little vanity i’ve left usually steps in at about week two or so and strikes it down with a razor. but i’m all out of razors, and have not the strength to retrieve one from the store. there is no one left to impress these days, except for the night girls working the register at zankou, but they are much too high to care by the time i crawl in. and so my beard does flourish. a lone tribute to life, and the things that remain after it is gone. a timeline of sorts, to gage the final days of another spirit sinking into the awfulness of hollywood.
on friday the 13th, my doctor, having received some lab results from several days earlier, called me into his office to tell me that my kidneys were failing, and that he didn’t know why. the nephrologist i saw a few days later confirmed that my kidneys were chug-chug-chugging along at a dangerously low 20% capacity. he ordered up about a 100 grand worth of tests, procedures, and lab work to find out why. all of which had to be processed through my insurance by lili, the nurse at my doctor’s office. a fairly simple task, the forms are simple enough and just require some signatures before being faxed to the insurance office. after a week of calling lili, sometimes 2-3 times a day, to check on my approval status, i decided to phone my hmo, with an entire rant prepared about the inhumane negligence of the money hording corporations that have hijacked our health care system, holding our lives in jeopardy. my sermon was unheard, it seems as though lili has not sent a goddam thing to the insurance office, probably because she realized she had sent me to the wrong doctor in the first place, and nothing would have been approved anyway.
i confronted lili yesterday, to her face. i wanted to scream and yell and throw things about. i wanted to be angry. i haven’t been angry in months. not that i haven’t had reason enough, i’ve had plenty. i’ve been fielding all sorts of ugliness lately. i tried to summon it, all the accusations, the worthless conspiracies, the lies, the evil fucking looks. i came up with nothing, and calmly relayed all of her mistakes out before her. she looked stunned. then scared. then she threw her arms into the air and begin charging back and forth across the office. “i don’t believe it! i don’t believe it!” she started pulling files and binders off the shelves. i went outside and called my insurance office and got set up with a new specialist without the help of lili. i have to start the process all over again, but i’m not dead yet, as they say.
kidney failure sucks. i’m slowly being poisoned to death and can’t do anything about it. it kinda fucking hurts. i thought i was pulling off a pretty good show for a while, but it occurred to me that i’ve already transformed into a ghost. some people talk about liking ghosts, but they still get a little uncomfortable when approached by one. i’m optimistic, and have all intentions getting patched up soon. i got places to see, people to find, revenge to reap. i want my beard to be magnificent by the time i pass, not the scraggly furry mess of present. but if that’s impossible, i hope someone in a lab coat will have the decency to be honest. i really don’t want to die in this shitbucket town.
i dedicate this beard to lili, who wears a wisp of a mustache herself, and who should never have to beg the mercy of a frazzled nurse with a fax machine and a guilty conscience. god bless her.
F L O MAX March 1, 2007
and i will transcend.
in a most hurried and reckless sort of way.
sharpest flickers of primitive prism
a crash of sonic frequencies you could never have the heart to comprehend.
witchy old armenian women in plastic shoes storm temple doors clutching their chests,
begging for the smallest taste.
an intoxicating vapor
that soothes and heals and sedates.
a pack of wild dogs comes to terms with their fate.
they gather a few remnants of a past love for midnight alleys,
greaZy dumpster treasure haunts,
and the relentless city energy,
that in retrospect,
has learned them nothing.
a procession for the hills,
where each beast must find it’s own way
to a dry scratch of earth
for an eternal sleep.
the children wave respectfully,
but have forgotten how to smile.
a leaky faucet carves stalagmites into sedimentary layers of abandoned bowls of broth.
a cigarette smoldering near an open window.
but i left centuries ago.
long before they mortared the sand into death
altars and condominiums and dressed her
as some whore.
long before the satellites came screaming across the sky,
clipping ears
demolishing the rec hall.
i am somewhere else.
i am stretched out across a buzzard’s roost in a nest of manzanita and critter carcasses,
trying to put the stars back together again.
there is a torch burning in the one room shelter across the canyon.
the lunatic on the hill,
sipping his only glass of red for the night,
parting the hair from his daughter’s sleeping eyes.
i look back up at the sky and can see waves of liquid fire rolling up against diamond bluffs, and i see new york city, and i can see what a fucking mess i made of some otherwise beautiful constellations.
ΛPГlCOT ГΛY
