scat

i crouched low, my dainty backside hovering a scant inch above the graffitti carved, reeking seat.

trashbin overflowing with all manner of unmentionables. walls wearing a thick coating of what appeared to be dust coated grease. with a 'thwwick' sound, i pulled my sneaker away from the sticky floor.

i tried to relax and get a little reading done. apparently -

"JT sucks cock" and "so does her mama" and "no, you suck your mama's cock" and also "i heart elephant"

but i couldn't relax because it was all too nasty for me in here. this downtown l.a. stall. i wrinkled my delicate nose and thought- "how DO people live like this?"

and that's when i knew. i've been spending too much time in clean, well lit, or candle lit, or softly diffused lightingly lit bathrooms. where the air is fresh and mints and thick towels greet you after hand washing. where care is given to their decoration, perhaps involving a chinese embroidered chaise in the 'lounge area.'

my mind flashed, back, to the not so distant before time:

the unbelievably filthy trucker's stalls i cleaned at the 'cuntry cuzzins' gas station in rural utah, when i was fourteen.

the open sewer/shower combo complete with roaches in taiwan.

the beautiful lounge in rome where you had to pay 15,000 lire for toilet paper only to enter a stall. inside which was nothing but sawdust and a hole.

the stinking, slickly wet barroom stall with a sturdy sink that was good for holding up a boozy girl as an eager boy with heavy breath lifted her skirt.

i felt like ebenezer scrooge reliving his life only i was visiting the ghosts of bathrooms past.

and i decided i don't ever want to have 'no idea' how people live like 'that' or anything else. because that's where i start to suck. (and not in a good way)

so, of-course i have no choice but to donate my own bathroom to the homeless and install a grimy outhouse in my courtyard.

come visit anytime.

village idiot

you don't fuck with the l.a. county criminal court system.

it'll kick your ass.

it'll shoot you dead.

unless you're famous and kill/have killed your wife. in which case, go on, fuck with it. enjoy, bitch.

not meeting the above criteria, when my jury summons came, i filled it out like a good little citizen, and received my mandatory appearance date.

the other way to fuck with the court system is if you are a truly gifted and dorky badass.

it was early in our 'getting to know ya' process. i sat on his couch, taking in the smell and touch and vibrancy of his life. the record collection and rock'n'roll posters. stole a glance at his dvds. shouted cheers of approval inside my head and heart.

a jury summons lay on the table. he had filled out, in pencil, that he could not perform his duties as juror because it would interfere with his daily job as 'village idiot.'

i laughed and said 'you're not actually gonna send that?'

he shrugged in his dorky badass way, licked the stamp, and sent it off.

i knew then that he was cooler than i'd ever be. and gutsier. he struck me as someone who could very well be a train wreck, or a carnival ride, or a 10-alarm fire. and he could've been. but he was more than that. because he had all this potential for explosion and implosion, yet chose to make a really cool, beautful life for himself.

which is at least as cool as being the village idiot.

i was on time to jury duty yesterday, sat in on my designated pre-trial, answered my potential juror questions in a clear voice and to the best of my ability. i returned from lunch promptly and didn't request any extra breaks.

they didn't choose me.

i wonder if it was my incessant drooling or the pointy dunce cap that did it?

metamorphasis (non kafka style)

if i didn't know better, i'd a sworn there was a punking or an x-ing or a yanking of the crank going on.

if i hadn't seen the diminuitive thai dude ordering the same blackcurrent tea, firing up the same efficiently inexpensive laptop, tip tapping away, wearing sound erasing headphones; every morning in the same quiet way... i would've been sweeping the joint for a hidden digi-cam.

you get a mental blueprint of the regulars. she's a cool rockabilly chick who leaves peet's for a morning of self-gratification and splatter art. he's a middle aged middle manager, frayed around the edges, looking for an affair or a shot-gun. she's a spoiled trophy wife pushing 30 and thinking about botox.

it's bull shit. but its a comforting stormy-ship-in-a-calm-harbour bull shit.

thai dude is soft spoken and shy, a writer, maybe working on a 'buddy cop' flick.

this morning, he gets the first cell call i've ever heard him get. and he metamorphoses. loud mouthed. machismo. crass. apparently adores boxing and kung fu and girls with bodies like 12 year olds. he has a snickering laugh and mean spirited sense of humour.

he does a really loud, really gay impersonation of mike tyson. "shit dude, don't step to me, i'll tear your ass off!"

he refers to lindsay lohan as 'that slutty chick with the really big ass boobs."

thai dude was so awful, so voluminously loud, and so long in chatting (10 minutes and counting) that i can still hardly conceive it wasn't a joke. or a lesson about judging books by their covers or about the false sense of privacy a cell phone conveys.

if i can't count on thai dude to properly play the role i've randomly assigned him, what have i got? anarchy, i tells ya! dogs and cats, living together. everything cast assunder-

the trophy wife's boobs are real and she bakes muffins for the homeless and is a part of a liberal think tank studying global warming!

wait, no, i just checked. their fake. whew.

okay, i'm fine again.

paparrazzi and pontiffs

the damn paparrazzi!
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

ms. slim attempted to leave the posh latin quarter brasserie when she was beset by the press.

after shuffling past the oggling, snap clicking photogs, slim repaired to the blvd st. germaine for a stroll along the seine.

at midnight, a softly illuminated notre dame beckoned and slim slipped inside the centuries old cathedral. there she found a service, in high latin, for the recently deceased pope.

she took a reverent seat in a close pew. the air heavy with incense, sweat, and sleepy sorrow.

an antiquated dirge was played on the beheamoth pipe organ.

a 30 foot laquered poster of the deceased pontiff unfurled. sacrament was offered and taken by many.

slim abstained.

when asked for comment- after her first trip to a roman catholic memorial service, for a pope, in a cathedral once home to quasimoto, slim replied-

"it was way creepy."

the still sea conspires

the still sea conspires
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

he never would've said it this way, but i knew he thought i was a pussy.

in a world fire branded for action, i was brainy but ineffectual. a clumsy, clunky, ridiculous kid.

dad didn't believe in God; but the gods he worshiped were mostly manly warrior poets. they were hurlers and shouters and void flauters.

in the grand spirit of abyss hurling, he was genuinely proud (and surprised) about my planned month long solo backpacking trip through europe.

proud that his kid had picked up some balls and was trying 'em out. he pulled out a wad of bills and started counting them. Got up to about $500-

"Aw fuck it, take it all, kid. Have a great goddamned trip."

i knew better than to count my money while I was sitting at the table, so I thanked him profusely and asked if there was any particular souvenir i could pick up for him.

he lit an unfiltered and said-

"there is one thing. visit jim morrisson's grave for me, willya? in paris. take a picture."

i'd always found his obsession with the doors to be vaguely embarrassing.

his beatles thing, i understood. my blood got the beatles. i could see where my dad would have a 10 foot canvas painted of the abbey road cover.

but morrisson? heavy duty lyrics and sturm and drang and the whole 'peyote desert' connection? it seemed a thing you should be over by the time puberty releases its hormonal grip upon your person.

as a kid, dad used to blast the doors, way past '11', and say- "listen up, moan, that's poetry. that's the real shit."

"her sullen and aborted currents breed tiny monsters" jim bellowed.

sullen and aborted currents? um, er, okay. where's penny lane?

now, i said "sure, i'll go to his cemetery" and i do believe i meant to. but I didn't. bought him a book about the beatles instead.

i wish i could forget the look on his face when I gave him that book.

the most gut kicked I ever saw him. i'd seen him outraged a million times. but never wounded. never an open sore.

"got a million books about the beatles kid. i just wanted a picture of morrisson's grave. you said you'd go for me. i can't get why ya wouldn't go like you said?"

why? fuck if I know. but I know it was a chance to step up and I missed it. by a mile.


he was dead within a year. at the wake, his twin brother told me- "your dad was real proud of ya. always said what a smart kid you are."

once, my school had my IQ tested. when mom sent dad the results, he was thrilled. turns out me and jim morrisson have the same IQ. dad had read about morrisson's smarts in the biography "no-one here gets out alive." he thought this was a pretty heavy connection.

"hell kid, maybe there's hope for you after all."

three days ago, i wandered through pere lachais cemetery, in the heart of paris. marble sepultres wrestled with sleek onyx tombstones. the sky was slate. The air, cold steel. i passed oscar wilde and maria callas along the way.

then I found him. his home was properly strewn with flowers and letters and cigarettes and a black lace bra. we spent a minute or two together. i took his picture.

and it felt a little like there might still be hope for me after all.