grey overcast skies
threat of rain looms in the air
electric ozone
Little Ritual Drawings
There was an area near the back of Children’s Clothing, near Giftware, that the cameras couldn’t see properly. Byron and I were standing inside that dead zone.
‘That old lady.’ I said.
‘Which one?’
‘The one you said was into hoodoo.’
‘You said she was into hoodoo.’ he corrected. ‘I had never even heard that word before you said it. I said she was into voodoo.’
I held up my hand. ‘Let's start over.’ I said. ‘That old lady you said was into voodoo.’
‘Yes.’ he said.
‘I don’t think she is.’
‘Oh, she definitely is.’
‘I find it hard to believe.’
‘No, she is.’ he insisted. ‘One time, she got into an argument with one of the cashiers. That cashier, Linda was her name, she found this little envelope in her locker. It was filled with little weird voodoo diagrams.’
‘Voodoo diagrams?’
‘I dunno what you call them. Little ritual drawings.’
I stared at him. ‘Uh huh. And?’
‘Well, right after that Linda got cervical cancer.’ he looked at me smugly.
‘And?’
‘Well, you think she just got cervical cancer from nowhere?’
‘It's been known to happen.’
‘Trust me.’ he said. ‘Plus, Katherine in Hosiery lives near her and says her house is really spooky.’
‘Oh, well it must be true then.’
‘Told you.’
‘Why do you think she hasn't used her black magic to fix her cataracts?’ I asked him.
‘Oh those are probably fake.’ he said. ‘So she seems harmless.’
‘Yeah, probably.’
Chicken Pumpkin Soup
I was sitting in the break room when the alleged Hoodoo Lady shuffled in, holding a plastic tupperware bowl filled with dark soup. She placed the bowl inside the microwave, programmed a time, then waited. She watched the soup circle round and round inside the microwave. I had a tuna salad sandwich on rye I had bought from a vending machine. The rye really made it.
When the microwave dinged, she reached inside to pull out her soup. It smelled good. Better than my tuna on rye. ‘Hoo!’ she called out, waving her hands in the steam of the microwave. ‘Lord that be hot!’ Slowly, she shuffled the soup over to the table and sat down.
‘What kind is it?’ I asked her.
She looked at me with foggy eyes which appeared mostly covered in cataracts.
‘Chicken pumpkin, darlin.’ she said, then blew on the soup while stirring it with a plastic spoon.
‘Sounds good.’
‘T’is.’ she said.
She began to eat in silence, though the soup was still steaming like crazy. She was tougher than me. I hate burning my tongue.
‘You have any idea what pretzel is made from?’ I asked.
She looked at me again. ‘Pretzel.’ she repeated.
‘Yeah pretzels, like you eat with beer.’
‘Pretzels made from bread, darlin.’
‘Are they?’ I asked. ‘I thought it might be corn.’
‘No, darlin.’ she said, with a small laugh. ‘Pretzels made from bread.’
‘OK,’ I said, finishing my sandwich and closing the plastic container it had come in. I stood up and tossed it into the garbage can by the door. ‘Good to know. Thanks. Have a good afternoon.’
‘So long.’ she said, giving it to that soup.
I headed outside for a smoke. She couldn’t be into hoodoo, I figured. If she were into hoodoo, she would’ve fixed her eyes by now.
Voodoo or Hoodoo
‘You need one of those showerhead attachment things.’ said Byron. We were in the break room and I was standing at my locker, changing my shoes. We had to wear shoes which could be shined: Taggs was a classy discount department store.
‘You attach it to the tap, and it has, like, a little rod which stands up from there, the hose and showerhead are attached to that. You can adjust the height.’
‘That’s what I need.’ I said. ‘Baths are depressing.’
‘You’re telling me.’ he said, spreading peanut butter on saltine crackers, one by one, then sprinkling salt on each. ‘Sitting around in your own shit.’
‘Exactly!’ I said, slamming my locker closed and sitting down at the table, across from him. I looked at the clock on the wall. I still had six minutes until my shift started.
An old woman shuffled into the break room, never lifting her feet from the ground. Her shoes were some sort of soft looking leather slippers. I thought maybe she was afraid they would slip off if she lifted her feet too much.
Byron had been about to say something when she had entered the room, but closed his mouth and rubbed his chin as he stared across the table at me. I had no idea what was going on, so I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. The steady chatter of the customers just outside the break room was a pleasing white noise. No screaming kids were nearby at the moment.
The doors to the break room swished open and closed as the old woman exited again.
‘That old woman.’ said Byron.
I opened my eyes.
‘She’s into voodoo.’ he continued.
‘Voodoo?’
‘Oh yeah.’ he said. ‘Lotsa voodoo in this town. So watch out, they say she hexes people.’
‘You mean hoodoo.’ I said.
‘Huh now?’
‘Voodoo is just a religion. It’s hoodoo that has hexes and shit.’
He started popping crackers into his mouth. ‘Hoodoo, voodoo, who gives a shit? Just don’t cross her is what I’m telling you.’
I watched him eat for a bit. ‘If she is into hexing people, she probably knows who’s talking about her behind her back, and who isn’t.’
He stared at me. ‘Shit.’ he said.
Combos for Cats
I was sitting on my bed, smoking a bowl, staring at the bathtub. I hated taking baths. I had never willingly taken a bath in my entire life; I was almost positive of that. The idea of taking a shower, and therefore not have to sit around wallowing in my own filth, was one of the few genuinely useful concepts my parents had ever actually introduced me to. After my introduction to showering, I never took a bath again.
I wasn’t about to start now.
There must be some way to hook up a showerhead, I figured.
Behind me, someone knocked on my window, which spooked me a bit. Me being on the third floor and all.
Standing on the fire escape outside my window was an orange cat, so skinny his ribs were showing. He was bumping his head into my window.
‘Yo,’ I said to it, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Beat it.’
‘Mow.’ said the cat. I could hear it faintly.
‘I have nothing for you.’ I said, looking around my room trying to think if I had anything it might like.
‘Mow.’ it said, bumping its head into the window.
I had a package of Combos: pretzel shell with pizza flavored processed cheese squeezed inside. It looked a little like dog kibble, if you wanted to be ungenerous.
Opening the window proved to be a bit of a challenge, as someone had decided to paint it shut; several times, by the look of it. Most recently in toothpaste blue. When the window finally did open, it did so with a tremendous cracking sound, which initially startled the emaciated cat. It ran off down a couple steps.
‘C’mere asshole.’ I said, shaking the package of Combos. The cat came running inside my room, standing on the table just inside. ‘Mow.’ it said, as if rather pleased with itself.
I shook a single Combo out onto the table, then ate two or three myself. The cat sniffed at the kibble-like piece, then licked at it, sending it sliding across the surface of the table. I caught it before it fell off. ‘Careful.’ I said, for no reason. It’s not like the cat knew what I was saying.
The cat took another half lick before snatching the Combo up in its mouth and chewed at it, biting off some of the pretzel. It was only at this point I wondered if pretzel was even something a cat should eat. I figured most dry cat food was made of corn meal or something similar, how bad could pretzel be?
Then I wondered what pretzel was made of. I had never thought about it before. Had to be corn, I figured. But it could just be bread. Damn: a mystery. I ate another Combo, chewing slowly and trying to identify a flavor. The only flavor I could put a name on would be ... bland.
‘Mow.’ said the cat. It had finished its Combo.
‘Here.’ I said, and tossed another piece out onto the fire escape.
The cat ran after it.
‘So long, Xylophone.’ I said, closing the window.
I ate the rest of the Combos in less than five minutes.
I did not take a bath.
Leary & The Beatles
Late night inebriated pub conversations seem to often get around to the topic of whether or not the Beatles deserve the credit for having irreversibly changed the sound of rock and roll forever, a claim which this article is not attempting to challenge; however, I do take issue with the verdict on the exact moment when the Fab Four allegedly changed Rock history. Many critics assert that the defining moment was their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, though even a cursory glance at the musical landscape of that time will show that their sound of that period was not largely different from many of their musical contemporaries of the era including the Rolling Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the Animals. Instead, I would argue that the Beatles changed the sound of rock permanently in August 1966 when the Four, beginning to largely eschew touring in favour of extended recording sessions in the studio, hammered out the experimental album, Revolver. Revolver was arguably the first recording of the burgeoning Psychadelic Era which, with it's heavy emphasis on expanding consciousness, would blow wide the primarily conventional format of rock into areas nobody could have anticipated even at the start of the 1960s.
Beginning to dabble with psychedelics, the approach of the Beatles when creating music became radically varied, some songs featuring full orchestration, others classic pop tunes, while still others ventured down the path of the heavily avant-garde. The most extreme cut on the album is the final song, "Tomorrow Never Knows", an acid trip experiment. Lennon, in a book store looking for a copy of The Portable Nietzsche, instead found a copy of The Psychedelic Experience by Dr. Timothy Leary, which contained the advice: "When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float downstream". Lennon bought the book, went home and dropped acid, then followed the instructions exactly as stated in the book. The resulting song featured lyrics adapted from Leary's book, including the above advice, tinny heavily phased vocals, reversed guitar solos, and sped up tape loops.
Dr. Timothy Leary began to champion lysergic acid diethylamide as a tool for recreating one's own psyche while at Harvard, using the psychedelic drug to experiment on convicted felons. His theory was that by using the correct dosage in conjunction with the right set (what one brings to the experience) and setting, preferably under the guidance of trained professionals, the drug could alter human behaviour in drastically beneficial ways by re-imprinting negative experiences as positive ones, thereby effectively re-tuning one's personality. As Leary's experiments garnered more and more notoriety, pressure was put on Harvard, both from fellow faculty members with reservations about the experiments, and from wealthy and influential parents; Leary's position was terminated in May 1963, ostensibly for missing too many lecture classes. Leary's experiments, however, continued. He had gathered the interest of a group of wealthy siblings named the Hitchcocks who acquired for Leary an immense mansion which was named the Millbrook Estate which swiftly became infamous for the increasing lack of scientific rigour as experiments degenerated into endless acid parties. He later wrote about the time: "We saw ourselves as anthropologists from the twenty-first century inhabiting a time module set somewhere in the dark ages of the 1960s. On this space colony we were attempting to create a new paganism and a new dedication to life as art."
The Beatles, too, were delving deeper and deeper into the psychedelic world, and pulling the rest of the rock world with them... their magnum opus, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is rife with acid influences and musical experimentation; the album's numerous and varied genres include music hall, jazz, rock and roll, western classical, sound collage and traditional Indian. The closing song on the album, "A Day in the Life" was banned by the BBC for including the line "I'd love to turn you on," a play on Leary's motto 'Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out' - at the time both Lennon and McCartney denied the line contained any drug-related reference, however years later McCartney's appearance in The Beatles Anthology video commenting on the lyric makes it clear that the reference was most definitely deliberate. In addition, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was long considered an acrostic ode to LSD, though Lennon denied this for the remainder of his life, claiming that the song was inspired by a drawing created by his son Julian.
It's easy to forget today that prior to the release of Sgt. Pepper most youth-oriented popular music was created for Top 40 AM radio consumption; music was largely collected on 45s, and when albums were purchased nobody expected the songs to be collected together through a theme, or considered them works of art. The impact of the Pepper album on the public was immediately palpable, however the influence it created within the music industry itself was monumental and irreversible, provoking a legion of other bands to experiment both musically and pharmaceutically. The sounds of bands like the Byrds and the Yardbirds began to evolve from traditional folk and British blues into compositions with a heavy Eastern Zen vibe, while more and more up and coming bands like Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Grateful Dead centered their entire image around the mind expanding aspect of rock and roll.
Leary, meanwhile, was eventually busted for possession of half a joint, which he claimed the arresting officer had planted on him, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, though, fortunately for him, this judgement was later reversed by the Supreme Court. On the day his conviction was overturned, Leary announced his candidacy for the Governor of California race, against former b-movie actor Ronald Reagan. John Lennon subsequently wrote the campaign song for Leary's race, "Come Together", based on his slogan "Come together, join the party" and invited the psychedelic guru to join their Bed-In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where he participated in the recording of the anthem "Give Peace A Chance", and is mentioned by name in the last verse. His personal victories were to be increasingly short-lived, though. In January of 1970 Leary was sentenced to ten years for his 1968 offense, and a further ten was added later while in custody for a previous arrest in 1965. When Leary arrived in prison he was given personality aptitude tests he himself had created, knowing which answers were most advantageous, he answered in a manner which indicated that he was a quiet conventional person who would be useful in gardening and forestry: he was subsequently assigned gardening work in a low security prison, and in September 1970 (the same month Jimi Hendrix overdosed) he escaped. By the time he was caught and arrested in 1973 with rumours flying around that he was turning stool pigeon to the FBI, the Psychedelic Era was effectively dead, but the damage had been done and rock and roll would never again be bound to conventional sounds and methods, experimentation became less and less the exception, and instead became the rule. Even today, experimental rock rules.
Checklist
in cases such as these,
even the intrusive warbling of a song bird
even the tentative practice of a promising violin
even the raised tail of a cat on the hunt
even the books unread
even the poems unwritten
even the songs unsung
even foods uneaten
even memories not yet compromised
even the sunbeam daring to enter
even the trees bursting forth uninvited
even that cherry blossom on the wind
even all possibility
even your laugh
can be contemptible.
Insomniac
Nana was an insomniac
she said that they prescribed
her booze just a little nip
to help with her sleep
she didn’t call it booze
mind you, she called it
her wee drink
over time her wee drink
was not so wee
and seemed to be less
about chasing sleep
and more about fueling
her true passion:
talking shit about just
everyone she had ever met
so now whenever i see
a cheap bottle of 5 Star rye
i picture Nana in Tartarus
wee drink in bony hand
telling Tony Hancock that
Edgar Allen Poe has a forehead
like a cinema screen or
comparing the Bell Witch
to the Monster of Glamis Castle
(unfavorably)
My Best Poems
are never written down
but dictated to me
on the edge of sleep
by Hermes
brief snatches in a
hypnopompic state
brilliant interludes
woven together with
abstract deliberation
each word perfect like
light filtered through
drops of dew on a spiderweb
i should get up
i should write
them down but
instead i wander away
into the land of Nod
the poems disassembled
their components tinder
for fictional flames
i guarantee you
they are better
than this one
A Real Bartender
serving drinks was once my job
but i am no bartender
a bartender serves drinks, but also
listens, understands, councils, maybe cares
the good ones do
not me
i chased dollars, watched clocks
and slipped out the backdoor unseen
each night i tried to forget their
faces and stories
willing them to drain away
watercolors in the rain
even now present tense
when haunted names
or ghostly bloated faces
bubble up to the surface
it is very much an
unwelcome intrusion
rejected with great prejudice
except Tap
Tap i remember fairly regularly
Tap i refuse to banish
i’m tied to him still
one of the few i liked
Indian by way of England
and could pronounce
the hell out of the word “water”
woo-tah
i can’t do it justice
he said it every time
as part of his regular order
double vodka and water
he had been a DJ and a drummer
and would tap tap tap the bartop
in time with whatever was playing
barehanded loud slaps
tap tap tap
sometimes so loud
it pestered other patrons
but i hated them anyway
so fuck them all
and their sambuca
play on Tap play on
but the beats didn’t pay
so Tap was a banker
tap tap tapping a calculator instead
then beating the bartop at night
over double vodka and water
before each order he would say
just one more. i have to work tomorrow.
be he might have one more
with the same warning
then one more
then one more
tap tap tap
his accent would turn more
liquid and we would bullshit
about UFOs, the mechanics of film noir,
or the collapsing of probability waves
just one more.
i have to work tomorrow.
except he stopped going to work eventually
we hit the skids one night
when he arrived
already deep in his cups
and i took an ego stand
about something which meant
almost nothing to me but
everything to him
no warning that night
he had finally been fired
i didn’t ask why
didn’t seem my place
maybe a real bartender would’ve
instead i served his drink
just double vodka
no water
and shot the shit
every topic became heated
and he told me many times
that i needed to drink less
which got my hackles up
it was so patently absurd
i reminded Tap he didn’t even
know how much i drank
he said again: no, you need to drink less
a real bartender might not have argued
but i did
somehow our chatter flowed
into the topic of a particularly
vile British racial slur
and the origin of the word
he maintained it was an acronym
for Worker On Government service
i said that was a backronym and
it was named after a racist doll
he said i was racist
for arguing the point with him
he had suffered the beatings
i didn’t argue that
only the etymology
as we were wont to do
on most nights
he finished his vodka
and went home angrily,
maintaining my racism
it wasn’t far
just across the street
i pictured him in his tiny condo
he had invited me over once
to smoke a joint after
3 in the morning
pre legalization
told me about his divorce
and his daughter
and blasted dubstep and
slapped his coffee table
tap tap tap until
security bang bang banged even
then he continued to tap but i went home
i never saw him again
after the night we argued
a real bartender might have
reached out to him
but i didn’t
a few weeks later i heard he
had solved all his problems with a rope
maybe a real bartender wouldn’t have
been affected water off a duck’s back
but i was
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