Andy Seven's Blog, page 5
September 4, 2020
DISNEY SUPERSTAR
DISNEY SUPERSTAR
Clean white and Christianairbrushed smiles but something's missingI was a Disney SuperstarI played a teenage scientist it was good clean funI frolicked with every wild animal under the sunchimps and bears incontinent horses and haresyou name it
I was a Disney SuperstarI couldn't make that scenenot good praying on my kneestoo many monorails too many balloonsdidn't like the way they drew me for their lousy cartoons
I was a Disney Superstarthe deeper the dirt the longer the curtainmoney sweeps away the awful truththat much is certainoh well
I was an exile on Main Street USAhey hey hey I ran out of gas I ran out of flubberRoy didn't dig me he had my numberwell that's showbiz and all it's hasslesI'm busting out mice and ducks from The Enchanted Castle
CODA:Disgraced Annette cast out by Walthe tried to turn her into a pillar of saltWalt was rayon Annette was teflonthe beach was bigger than Plasticlandif you dig Goofy but you don't dig DeeDeeDont...even...talk...to...me
Toon Heist painting by Earl Norem
Disney Superstar - Copyright 2020, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI)
August 28, 2020
Tomboys
Tomboys
Tomboysaren’t boys at allthey'e not Les Beyonds they can make things break thingslacquer and metal-flake things
My heart jumps off the twisted railswhen they shoot their guns all loaded with nailsshe’s sweating out a drill pressin a Von Furstenberg dress
Tomboys aren’t pink and fluffyin a pair of Docs they play it cold and roughlyclimb a tree climb a wall it’s no problem at all
When you get that crushit’s like Cupid’s razor-clawed touchlet her run like a wild childburn rubber til her tits catch firetomboys tomboys tomboys
Okay, so apparently I'm having too much fun recording my poems to my disturbing music. It's become so exciting that I've decided to cancel the release of Year of The Bat. It'll be more fun to record all my poems and if you want to enjoy them, too, please follow me at https://soundcloud.com/andusevenltd . Thanks!
Tomboys - Copyright 2020, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI)
August 15, 2020
The Multimedia Poet Refuses To Die!
My first collection of poetry, Year of The Bat will be released this Labor Day weekend. Instead of doing a full promotional burst on every social network I decided to record some of my poetry as audio tracks and do a few readings on video. The audio tracks can be heard and shared on SoundCloud and the videos would be distributed evenly between Vimeo and You Tube.
A few months ago I posted Hollywood Is Killing Me on SoundCloud, a track I really enjoyed recording. Filled with inspiration I went back to recording another poem. this one titled Nerdy Girl, which can also be read in Year of The Bat. This turned out pretty well, too, and I'm already making plans to record a newer poem. I feel like Ken Nordine!
Brake Job - Andy Seven
But sometimes people feel more connected when they can actually see the poet reading his work in person, so for the people who prefer that format I give you a peronal reading of another poem titled Brake Job. This is a prose version of the countless hustles from service centers trying to weasel more of my hard-earned money for bigger repair jobs, all driven by the fear factor. I thought I captured the panic mode these shrewd sales people employ.
The Band Didn't Show Up - Andy Seven
Some folks have nightmares where they're on stage naked and getting laughed at. Since I like my body that nightmare doesn't really scare me, so instead I have this recurring nightamre where I'm ready to pterform a big show and the rest of the band stands me up, leaving me to carry the whole show alone. Hmmm, well now that I've embraced folk music that bad dream is over too, because I plan on doing all my shows solo. Wonder what the new nightmares will be like?
What's the moral to this story? It's very simple: if you can't get people to read anymore then get thy ass up on that soapbox and read in front of a camera lens where people can see you - yes, they will watch - or record your work with a hip music track jamming out. If nobody gives a damn about Emile Zola anymore then they certainly won't be booking it to Barnes + Noble to pick up your masterpiece, so slap on some makeup and work that close-up. And promise me you won't be boring.
Electric Mandolin II - Andy Seven
Andy Seven - Copyright 2020, Nerdy Girl, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved.
July 17, 2020
Tales From The Dance Floor
Before fascism overtook the United States I discovered industrial dance with an urge to live a few moments of Weimar Germany in Hollywood, like Sally Bowles filtered through KMFDM and their like. If Trump, The Proud Boys and The Fake National Guard were going to stain the American flag then I was going to deal with it like a Weimar German. I danced on a floor of fire as America burned.
I took a spiritual left turn at Greenland and never came back. I embraced dancing and the dance floor with a passion I hadn’t experienced in years. I watched cybergoth dancers on You Tube with religious devotion, and when I got tired with that I turned to videos of Bob Fosse and Gene Kelly. I even watched Flip Wilson and Art Carney, who might have been dancing for laughs but still showcased an uncanny grace in the way they moved.
In early 2017 I began hitting the goth clubs dancing to darkwave, witch house, industrial and ye olde goth. I also went to electronica, trip-hop and dubstep shows on the side where there was some great dancing, too.
I’ve danced in crowded ballrooms and I’ve also been the lone dancer in an empty club with just me and the DJ. I didn’t give a damn; I came to dance whether there was anybody there or not. More than a few DJ’s marveled at my resilience in dancing non-stop to their music in an empty room.
A lot of clubs play dance floor favorites like I Sit On Acid By Lords of Acid, The Devil Does Drugs by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Hallucination Generation by The Gruesome Twosome, and that Halloween song by Ministry, among others. These are tried and true hits at the clubs because they make you want to move.
Some DJ’s are pretty lazy, though. One immediately comes to mind that plays literally the exact same playlist every month and he gets away with it. The clubs are always jam-packed for him, so obviously people love his formula.
Sometimes a DJ works the dance floor into a frenzy, playing one song after another with the momentum building higher and higher, then they kill it by putting something really slow or undanceable on, and everybody slowly drifts to the back of the room. It takes a while to win us back over.
Let’s talk about couples, the lumpy tire on the dance floor. They bring a lot of drama to the dance floor in a variety of ways. Let’s list them:
1.The Territorial Couple: Even if the floor is totally empty they’ll want to dance EXACTLY in your space, practically pushing you off the floor because they just have to dance where you’re standing. This is either a sign of annoying assertiveness on their part or they think you’re such an awesome dance they just have to shimmy right next to you.
2.The Jealous Boyfriend: If you’re a really good dancer then a girl might say a few too many nice things about your dancing to her boyfriend, and the next thing you know the boyfriend has to practically shove his way in front of you. This is his way of showing you and her who’s the boss, lol. Annoying as hell.
3.The Embarrassed Boyfriend: A lot of straight guys either hate dancing or are terrified of looking foolish trying to dance, so some try to goof around on the floor dancing like it’s just a big joke. I see this more at rock dance clubs than the goth ones, where masculinity is a big issue for some of these boys.
Let’s talk about masculinity and dance: at some clubs it’s assumed because I love to dance it somehow means I’m gay. On more than a few occasions out of nowhere an extremely aggressive dude just jumps right in front of me and insists on dancing right in front of my face. This forces me to make a professional basketball player’s pivot around them and dance in the opposite direction.
The scary part is when they won’t take no for an answer, and continue pursuing me around the club all night. And you ladies insist we men don’t understand what it’s like to be sexually harassed? I could write a book.
Men, men, men: I’ve been to some clubs where you couldn’t dance in peace because the security guards kept weaving through the crowd on the floor acting like they’re in a scene in some high-octane action film. Nobody in the crowd is fighting, there’s no trouble at all. Just a bunch of burly clods pushing and shoving their way around the floor acting important. That club’s gone now. Can’t say I miss it much.
But enough about everybody else, let’s talk about me: You need to really love to dance, love to dance no matter what’s being played because dance is life, dance is love, dance is poetry which doesn’t need words.
You have to love to dance so much it doesn’t matter that some sadistic DJ feels like shooting gallons and gallon of smoke into your face all night and filling the room with so much smoke you can barely breathe, or the DJ who wants the room completely dark so you’re literally dancing in darkness, no lights save for maybe a video of vampires and witches killing each other.
You have to love to dance so much that when people are sitting around in a complacent state you step right up to them and dance like a dervish in front of them, throwing down and daring them to get the fuck up and stomp with you. And they do. That’s better than goth, that’s punk as fuck.
You have to love to dance so much that after you dance for an hour at Bar Sinister you walk right by a couple (that two-headed monster again) and they both shake your hand because they tell you that they loved what they saw, it was something really amazing to them, not taking the piss, either.
And that’s the beauty of dance, if you can rouse a crowd into getting up and moving in several clubs or entertaining some people at another, then you’ve drawn a line in the sand, or better yet, on the dance floor.
June 19, 2020
Aladdin I. Shadow
A young man stood against the wall in front of a night club. It was after eleven o’clock at night.
Aladdin I. Shadow had platinum blonde hair and a chiseled face, which made him look like a young Greek god of sorts. He wore elephant flares that would have made him trip all over himself had it not been for the three inch platforms that he wore. The platform shoes were a dark gold with brass heels and soles and went Click Clack, Click Clack. When he walked he made a sound like a broken clock.
Tonight he wore a red and silver lurex shirt which he would open as far down as his mood permitted him. If his he felt alright the shirt would be buttoned midway down his chest, if he was down it could be buttoned up to the throat, and if he was really happy it would be buttoned down to the navel. This kept the boys happy and the girls even happier.
His mood was just so-so, hence the shirt open midway down his chest. He was a funny sort, not an actor but more of a reactor. This meant that he hung out a lot but didn't really instigate anything, making him instantly likeable to everyone. He went with the flow as long as someone else started it.
Mood was a very important component in his life. When he was up he was called Lad and when he was down he was simply called Shadow. Things were complicated in his mind but to others they probably looked simple. That’s the way things always look when you’re eighteen years old.
A tall girl with brown hair cut in a shag hooked her arm around his and without slowing down her walk pulled him into the club.
“What gives?” Lad asked her.
“You looked all glum and mopey just standing outside on the sidewalk all by yourself”, she said, topping it off with a sweet kiss to his face.
“You take me too seriously, Raggedy Jane”.
“No, you do!”
Raggedy Jane dressed like a big glam doll with huge red spots on her cheeks and large distended false eyelashes sticking out of a pale baby face looking like a doll gone berserk. Her clothes were a jumble of thrift shop left-behinds with some sharp glam fashions, so she’d tie a lumberjack shirt like a halter above a pair of glittery hot pants.
“Gimme a stick of gum!” she barked, going through the pockets of Lad’s tight pants.
“Gimme a second to give you one!” he barked back. He reached into his jacket and pulled out two sticks.
“Here, take two. That ought to keep your mouth full for a change”.
“Danke schoen!” she slugged, jamming the two sticks in her heavily lipsticked maw.
The club stank heavily of stale beer with the walls wrapped in cheap pine. Posters of Mick Jagger and Marc Bolan greeted them as they walked in. There were several lipsticked kiss marks around Mick Jagger’s crotch. Marc only had one. Further down the bar was a mirrored dance floor.
The DJ in the booth was playing “Dynamite” by Mud. The Chinn-Chapman style drums beat a deep, thick tattoo that penetrated every corner of the club.
“She comes in looking like dynamite”, the band wailed over the powerful drumbeat.
“I ALWAYS COME IN LOOKING LIKE DYNAMITE!” Jane yelled in Lad’s ear as they entered the fray. Kids were dancing and showing off with glitter on their cheeks and tops of metallic colors with high-rocketed shoes and boots intended to upstage each other with height.
They went into a hip-swinging dance until Raggedy Jane leaned over and saw a girl in the crowd and began waving her arms broadly like a lunatic.
“LITTLE DOT! LITTLE DOT! OVER HERE, WHORE!” Jane yelled, making Lad’s ears ring even louder. He turned slightly and saw their friend Little Dot somehow dancing and pivoting closer and closer towards them on the dance floor.
Little Dot earned her name because like the comic character wore nothing but polka dots, the louder the better. Her dresses, shoes and handbags were always in polka dots. Once she tried to bleach her hair to have polka dots but it nearly fell out completely, so she settled for a blonde Veronica Lake waterfall instead.
“Raggedy Jane! Aladdin!” Little Dot smiled, not missing a step to the Mud song as it faded and Showaddywaddy started up with their one good tune. Aladdin smiled quietly.
“Dot, I love your Garbo look tonight, how fantabulash!” Jane screamed, hugging Little Dot as showingly as possible.
“No, bitch, I’m Dietrich tonight, not Garbo!” Little Dot yelled back as they traded invisible kisses on each other’s cheeks.
“I’ll be right back”, Aladdin said as he walked off the floor towards the bar.
A tall boy with a fuzzy Afro and bright red overalls waved Lad over. “Hey, brother, long time no see!”
“Hey, Gunk! What are you drinking?”
The kid called Gunk made a bitter face and grumbled, “Ginger beer”.
Lad laughed and Gunk then smirked, “Want a sip?”
“No, I’ll wait until I’m old enough to drink real beer”.
“Hey, is your dad home?”
“No, he’s out with some broad in Murrieta Hot Springs or some shit like that”.
“Cool, man. We can raid his liquor cabinet while he’s out screwing Anita Bryant”.
Aladdin frowned. “Nah, he’s getting wise to me. I see pencil marks on the label now, so he suspects I’m jacking his sauce”. They both laughed. He looked at a round metallic disk on Gunk’s overall.
“Hey, you didn’t say anything about my Slade pin”, Gunk said. ” I made it myself”.
“It’s okay, I guess”, Aladdin said begrudgingly. It was a homemade creation in magic marker.
“What do you mean ‘it’s okay’? What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, you spelled everything right. If it’s Slade you’re supposed to misspell everything, like you’re trying to piss off your English teacher. ‘We’re all crazy’ is supposed to be spelled ‘WEER ALL CRAZEEE’”.
“Oh shit”, Gunk frowned.
“I’m going back on the floor”, Aladdin tapped his feet loudly. “Come on and join us!”
Gunk gaped at the girls on the dance floor.
“I want to bang Little Dot so bad”, Gunk gushed. “Put in a good word for me”.
“Little Dot doesn’t like sex. She’s so loaded all the time she doesn’t even remember what fucking means”.
“Don’t tell me that!”
“Bye”, Aladdin smiled as he danced through the crowd. The DJ moved into “Personality Crisis” by the New York Dolls and the kids all screamed at the beginning like David Johansen.
He reached Raggedy Jane and Little Dot’s little circle and joined them.
“Where have you been?” Raggedy Jane wailed. “We’ve been just so severely traumatized without you!”
“I was talking to Gunk. He’s madly in love with Little Dot”.
Little Dot made a sour German face. “Nein to nerds! Nein to nerds! Ich nicht lieben du nerds!”
“Oh, she really thinks she’s Dietrich tonight!”
“That’s okay, he made a correctly spelled Slade button tonight”, Aladdin announced.
“SIE! SCHEISS DAS NERDEN!”
As Aladdin danced he scanned the room to see if he recognized his other friends, what few he had. Every once in a while he’s catch some old guy, old enough to be his father scamming up to some girl his age. It made him angry, and some even closely resembled his father in a weird way. It never was the same after his mother died three years ago.
Dancing to silly songs like Tiger Feet and My Coo-Ca-Choo was a narcotic that numbed him from the tragedy of losing his forty-year old mother to cancer. The loud colors of his clothes and the explosive music served as a benign shellshock from the grief he really felt. It didn’t hurt that he befriended his rich female classmates who accepted him like a brother, so he accepted as many female friends as he could.
With the surrogate brother role he was handed he kept his drinking at home while his surrogate sisters got as drunk and stoned as they wished. His dad had good taste in liquor so it didn’t bother him to stay sober. Besides, Hollywood cops scared him. They always seemed desperate to prove that they were tougher than the rest of the Los Angeles police force.
Cops hated the glam clubs and would occasionally raid the place with a few firemen to create the justification that attendance was unsafe, when in fact the occupancy level was not over exceeded at all. When the police and fire chiefs made their big production it always culminated at the cash register by the bar with the register ringing and some money would flash in and out of unknown hands.
Little Dot and Raggedy Jane lustfully posed with Virginia Slims hanging off their lipstick lips and air kissed to Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plain” and stopped everything to scream out, “BABY JANE’S IN ACAPULCO WE ARE FLYING DOWN TO RIO!!!”
Smoke drifted out their skulls when they screamed.
****************
After the club closed they went down to the coffee shop down the block with the other kids. It was always a good idea for all the kids to go the same coffee shop to prevent the lowriders from picking on them. The car club kids always came in to Hollywood from their neighborhood to mess with the glam set.
The waitresses hated all the glam kids and always took their time handing out menus and taking their orders, their way of letting them now they weren’t welcome.
Jane, Dot and Aladdin took a table of their own.
“Oh look”, Jane frowned at the waitress. “We’re getting our menus fifty years later”. The waitress practically threw the garishly colored oversize plastic menus at them.
Little Dot spun every page of the menu like a speed freak. “Trash, trash, trash, trash, trashtrashtrash and more trash. Yuck!”
Aladdin smiled. “Why don’t you say it in German, Miss Dietrich?”
“It’s past midnight, sweetie I’m doing Carole Lombard now. Marlene was SO last night!”
Raggedy Jane stared at the menu with intensity. “Thousand Island or Ranch? The night has a thousand eyes!”
Little Dot lit up another Virginia Slim. “Miss Dot will have an iced tea and your salad crackers, dahlink”.
Raggedy Jane looked at Lad. “What’ll it be?”
“Grilled cheese sandwich with French fries”, Aladdin said.
Little Dot cackled. “That’s drunk food! You’re not even loaded!”
“I didn’t have dinner tonight. I’m pretty hungry”.
They waited another fifteen minutes for the waitress to make a cameo appearance. The other kids were getting pretty impatient with their service, too.
“Jesus, my stepdad comes around more often than this fucking waitress does”, Raggedy Jane grumbled. “Oh, here she comes”.
Their taciturn waitress took their order but didn’t bother to take their menus from them. The three teenagers simply took the menus and threw them into the booth next to them. The coffee shop hostess glared at them from across the lounge.
“Now, check your food before you eat it”, Jane advised her friends. “Someone may leave a special souvenir in there just to show you how pleased they are to serve us”.
“You betcha”, Little Dot puffed away.
CUT THAT’S A WRAP
EPILOGUE: The waitress took so long with their order that Little Dot got bored and sat on top of their table and sang "Falling In Love Again" looking bored and smoking languidly until the coffee shop hostess charged their booth and threw our friends out. They ended up going through a Jack In The Box, and that's the way it was.
June 5, 2020
RED COFFEE Suspense Novel OUT NOW!
Red Coffee is my latest novel, and it's about young model Lois Angelus, grabbing any modeling job she can, whether it's posing for sculptors, posing for high-end department stores, or even providing eye candy for a tenth-rate slapstick comedy short feature. Everything seems to be moving steadily for Lois until she’s witness to a murder of a prominent banker. That's when her troubles begin, and they never slow down in this hard-boiled horror tale.
It's the story of a woman caught in the crossfire of a class war in Thirties Los Angeles. My novel blends elements of urban horror and roman noir with a feminine viewpoint through it all. I originally serialized this novel on my blog about ten years ago, and now it can be enjoyed as a standalone novel.
The prototype for Lois is based on my favorite actresses of the post-silent and pre-code era like Ann Dvorak, Aline McMahon, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Leila Hyams, to name just a few. The way they combined feminine grace with a tough inner core inspired me to create a character in tribute to them.
I put this project on delay for all these years because it was such a radical departure from anything else I've written I didn't really know what to do with it, but now I feel confident enough to release it on its own merits.
Red Coffee is a hard-boiled amalgam of the pre-code cinema of William Wellman and the moody horror films of Val Lewton, creator of Cat People and The Seventh Victim. Prepare to enter a world of deadly scarecrows, murderous folksingers, academics tripping on LSD, slanderous séances, white supremacist terrorists, and birds, birds, birds!
Red Coffee is available as an eBook for only $3.99, and can be purchased through these eTailers:
Amazon Kindle: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B0892PPSSC&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_ooPZEbD3QRBJT
iTunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/red-coffee/id1514799647
Kobo (Canada): https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/red-coffee
My new novel can probably be found at other sites besides the ones mentioned above, so check it our wherever it is. I hope you enjoy it, and as usual, I guarantee outrage on every page!
Andy Seven Ltd. · Sometimes I (2020 Remix)May 21, 2020
Hollywood Is Killing Me
There's a two-drink minimum
walking down these lonely looney streets
and all the zombies think you're a hustler
or you're zonked on garage ghetto speed
Hollywood Is Killing Me
All the status quo has got to go
all the phonies are your cronies
unimpressed cause they're better than the rest
they're not even close
just dull and depressed
Hollywood Is Killing Me
You think you're Babylon as you mindlessly prattle on
night clubs that suck the cliques even more
with fidgety bouncers all trying to score
if they can't fuckit killit shootitup or spillit they'll show you the door
Hollywood Is Killing Me
The unhappiest snappiest place on earth
is like a flaming dumpster rolling down a hill
lisping "smell my perfume"
but it all stinks of doom
Hollywood Is Killing Me
This snotty little hipster village 86'ed me
heckle and jekyll'ed me tried to dick me
it's the capitol of
last night's beer yesterday's dreams hairweaves rusty needles and condoms spent
Hollywood Is Killing Me
May 8, 2020
The Andy Seven 2020 Halftime Progress Report
There have been no idle hands at work during the pandemic, and I daresay this may be one of the most fertile periods of creativity I’ve ever had. I have a lot of new things to report, so much stuff I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s take it from the top:
1.I put up an Author Page on Book Baby’s website for your review. It has links to all of my current books on sale, and also includes news about any upcoming releases. Here’s the link with a small screen capture, too: https://store.bookbaby.com/bookshop/profile/index.aspx?profileURL=andyseven
2. Check out a great poem I wrote called “Succubus” for Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly, Spring 2020 Edition. It’s a sexy horror poem influenced by the films of Jean Rollin/Jess Franco. You can download a copy of it and read it here: https://horrorsleazetrashcom.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/hstq-spring-2020_ebook-1.pdf
3. All of my novels are now available for library-style lending from Hoopla.com. All you need is a library card and it’s absolutely free. Hoopla also has hundreds of CDs and DVDs you can take out, too. Here’s the link for Hoopla.com: https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?page=1&q=andy+seven&scope=EBOOK&type=direct
4. On a non-literary note I’ve posted a few obscure Trash Can School tracks and Cockfight remixes on my Soundcloud page, and once again, it’s absolutely free! If you have a Soundcloud account, please add Andy Seven Ltd. as a favorite artist. (By the way, the typo on my name in the URL is my fault. I’m going to fix that). Here’s the link: https://soundcloud.com/andusevenltd
5.And last, but certainly not least, I have a new novel on the pipeline titled Red Coffee, due for an early June release date. My first book in four flaming years! If the title sounds familiar it’s because it was serialized in this blog many years ago and will finally see the light of day as a full-fledged work. Here’s a sneak peek at the cover:
In closing I wanted to mention that all excerpts and chapters from my novels have been taken down from this blog and will no longer be available for reading. If you want to enjoy them from this point on, you can either take the entire book out on Hoopla.com, or better yet, buy the whole thing on Amazon Kindle, iTunes, Book Baby, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo in Canada, or Oyster (if they’re still in business).
I have some new projects planned for later this year, i.e. another book in October 2020, more poetry in a wonderful comp titled Will To Flutter, and my first new music in years for sale on Bandcamp. The future looks bright, virus be damned.
April 25, 2020
Year Of The Bat
I’m watching The Last Man On Earth starring Vincent Price about the sole survivor of a virus that wipes out the entire planet. He lives alone in a boarded-up house and goes through his daily routine of buying supplies, eating alone and setting up fresh cloves of garlic to fend off gangs of zombies outside. In one scene he loses his composure, fed up with the futile redundancy of it all and screams, breaking things out of frustration. “That’s how I felt today”, I whispered to myself.
When I first heard of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) the news bulletin was accompanied by a photograph of a Chinese woman eating a full-bodied vampire bat, wings and all, in a ramen bowl. At first people waved it off as just another exotic disease, yet it spread like wildfire.
My job has been deemed “essential” by my company, a global intelligence organization, so I have been mandated to report to the office every day. I’ve also been mandated to wear a mask while walking down the hallway, however upper management doesn’t share this concern and continue to walk around without masks.
The building is like a ghost town. Many of my co-workers were granted Work From Home privileges but I have not. In order to cut costs the coffee makers, vending machines, refrigerators and microwaves have been turned off.
Driving home from work has been a bizarre experience: people jogging down the street, unmasked and reeking of sweat – body fluids is the chief conductor of the pandemic. Others are happily bicycling down the road.
One night at the market I saw a girl with her dog on a leash in the produce section. The dog tugged on the leash towards a stand of apples and licked the produce.
The first two weeks of the pandemic were the worst. It began at the onset of spring and my sinuses went berserk from hay fever, limiting my ability to breathe properly and making me wonder if COVID-19 was on the attack. This results in many nights of staying up with paranoid anxiety attacks, finally passing out eventually at 2 AM from sheer stress.
It’s my mother’s birthday so I visited her grave at the cemetery. The cemetery is high atop a hill by Warner Brothers Studios on Forest Lawn Drive. The sky is uncommonly blue, bright blue in fact, due to the decrease in cars racing around and polluting the atmosphere. In fact, I don’t think I can remember the sky ever looking so deep blue like this before. It’s lovely.
Everyone’s on the internet with their theories and amateur remedies about the pandemic, some of which contradict each other, establishing endless waves of confusion. I decide to stop reading what these experts have to say. It only creates more stress.
I’m at the Laundromat and have stationed myself in a far corner towards the back, away from everyone else. Nobody cares about the pandemic; the manager walks around sweating through his tee, no gloves or mask worn. All the more reason I’m glad I have them on, however people keep hovering around me and my area in spite of the fact that their wash is on the other side of the room. What gives?
Wipe everything down, wipe everything down with disinfectant. Do it again. And again. Wash your hands. Count to twenty. Slowly. Repeat. Repeat again. Don’t touch your face. I touch my face, anyway. I simply wash my fucking face. Slowly.
I have decided to order my groceries online because people at the market are manically shopping, jumping in front of you to beat you at grabbing something in spite of the fact that there are fifty more blocks of cheese on the shelf, etc. Shopping has become this frenetic experience, even though there’s more than ample supply of everything, except toilet paper.
The network news shows the virus dead in body bags getting loaded onto a truck because there’s no more room at the morgue. Some may get a proper burial, but many will simply be burned to prevent the spread of the disease.
I finally get permission to Work From Home for one day. In the middle of the day my employment agency calls and tells me that next Friday will be my last day at work. I have been at the organization for over a year and they’re letting me go. Actually, they’re unplugging me, just like the microwave, the refrigerators, and the vending machines.
My time is currently spent writing and editing in the solitude of my home. I look out my living room window and the hordes are still jogging, bicycling, motorcycling like it’s a bank holiday and the pandemic fatalities keep going up.
April 10, 2020
Two For The Road
TURNPIKE SHOOTER
Drink your cowboy coffee hot and black
Bobby Bare on the jukebox I Want To Go Home
Greasy grits sausages blonde toast with hard cube butter
Chester Lester hammered his breakfast like an Atlantic City seagull
Crewcut baby face like Buddy Lee
50% Elvis 50% Supply Sergeant
RocknrollBrando CompanyDCommando
Finished his food and threw it up in the parking lot
Drove on over to the turnpike with its pretty elms pines brush scrub
Pulled out a duffel bag full of ammo
Sniper time it’s the prime time
Chester Lester prime time
Climbed up an elm and took combat position
Priest in a car caught a bullet in the face
Too many beatings in school nuns need guns guns that kill
The sedan skid ‘n swerved ‘n spun and woundaroundandaround
And rolled down an embankment
Chester Lester took a tight swig from his half-pint
Clear fluid flames electrifying him
Beehive mama driving by in a battered VeeDubBug uh BeBopDeBop
Chester took aim thinking of the big beat beat-up beatings he took
Opened fire again
The past passed by and then passed on
Slowly drifting to a grinding halt against the gray cloudy sky
The graygraygrave tombstone sky
Khaki jeep slowed down to check out the stationary sled
The crewcut killer opened fire
Open fire flame on
The jeep pulled over two soldiers took cover
Pulled out their irons and shot at the direction the bullets flew
Highway Patrol car zoomed by and pulled over
Chester Lester blew bullets their way
Death bird in the trees
Death bird tearing up leaves
Rain of bullets from the black & white
Rain of bullets from the iron green sled
Hail stones chipped off bone from Lester’s plaster skull
Then came torrents of tragedy red plasma
Watering the grass with his death
Rolled out of tree
And the birds flew away
Looking for somewhere else to sing
*********
SIERRA SUE THE LOT LIZARD
Times are tough
A girl’s gotta eat
Some of the fellas like it rough
In the cabin seat
Dead trucker found in the shower stall at the I-95 rest stop
A few chicken bones from KFC left around
Sierra Sue faking the voodoo
Planted evergreens swayed in the freeway wind oh so bored
Stench of chicken fried steak in the air
Big doll eyes Big blonde hair
Blonde medusa snakes slithering roundandroundandround
Sierra Sue
Then there was Big Grizzly with his arms cuffed behind him
Knife marks tattooed in swirls all around him
Leather seat coated in blood
Money belts all stripped
She was a lot lizard slithered around
From rest stop to rest stop
All you saw was her dark shadow
Rotten and forgotten
Quick rubbers in the vending machine
Locked and loaded for a good time in the lot
A million ways to die
A hundred ways to kill
Truck stop mama
Praying mantis of the turnpike
Phantom tollbooth
She had her knife all ready
Ladyfingers gripping icy cold steel
Pepper spray garrot wire handcuffs more killtools than cosmetics in her purse
Sierra Sue big tits big ass high heels big death
