Illustration for "Danube Blues"

John Stanford and I recorded my song "Danube Blues" several weeks ago. I wrote the lyrics in 1972 but my written copy got lost over the years and I forgot one stanza. So on the morning of the day we recorded it I wrote a new stanza, using as a model one stanza of Lowell George's song "Willing" and transposing the locus of activity to Central Europe and points south: "I've been from Dubovnik to Djibouti/Darmstadt to the Dardenelles/I've ridden every kind of horse that's every been bred/I fought twenty-three duels/And left twenty-three dead." Yesterday John and I were working on drawing for the band's (Jersey Petroleum) website. I had no idea where I was going with this drawing until it was nearly finished, at which point I realized it was an illustration of the last two lines of this stanza.

Working Title: Happy Hour At The Wobblie Wonk

Here's how it starts:

Fabio is a sixty year old visual artist who lives and works in a loft on Forsyth Street. He was born in San Francisco, came to Manhattan in 1966 to attend Columbia, and has been living in downtown Manhattan since the mid-70s, first in Soho and later on the Lower East Side.

Gerard is thirty eight year old musician and composer who lives in a one bedroom apartment on Suffolk Street. He was born in London, moved to Manhattan at eighteen to attend Julliard, and moved downtown to the East Village, originally to a squatter building, in the early 90s, right after graduation.

It’s Happy Hour at The Wobblie Wonk on Rivington Street. As “I Wanna Hold Your Hand at the Hotel California” begins to ooze from a satellite radio station, Gerard and Fabio, who had been sitting silently next to each other, begin talking.

G: “Fucking Beagles really suck… Fucking boomers really suck… Why has this bar started pandering to empty nesters from the ‘burbs who have just bought brand new pied-a-terres in our once dangerous neighborhood?”

F: “I actually don’t share your disdain for the new arrivals. They can be amusing to talk to, if somewhat limited, although you’re right, their music does totally suck. But junkies are way overrated as neighbors. I’m rather happy they’ve gone somewhere else to nod off and overdose.”

G: “But don’t you object on a cultural level? Isn’t this music extremely painful to listen to?”

F: That’s a different matter. Boobus boomerus, whose geographical range extends from North America to Europe and Japan, is closely related to boobus americanus, the species of human being first identified by H. L. Mencken in the 1920s, and only found in the United States.”

G: “’Cuz who needs a CD by Billy Joel/Is dat all yuh get faw yaw munnnney…’”

F: “Isn’t it curious that the Greatest Generation spawned the Lousiest Generation?”

G: “But you’re a boomer aren’t you?”

F: “No. I am in the same age cohort as the boomers, that’s undeniable, but by all standards of taste, civility and intellectual orientation, I am most decidedly not a boomer, as the term is popularly understood.”

G: “The most typical examples of your boobus boomerus I ever observed were a mom and dad in their late forties or early fifties out to dinner with their ten year old son at a now defunct barbecue restaurant on Varick Street. This was about ten years ago. Dad had a receding hairline and a greasy ponytail. Mom was soft and flabby and wearing clothes that, given her body type, showed way too much flesh. Both of them were wearing sandals over their dirty feet. Mom and dad were on one side of the booth swaying back and forth Kumbaya style as they serenaded their embarrassed offspring with an off key rendition of Sweet Baby James’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”

F: “Who along with his ex-spouse won a Crummy Award for Most Appalling Honky Cover Of An R&B Classic for their emetic version of “Mockingbird.”"

G: “I want to blow up the fucking Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That little cunt Rhymin’ Paul “Fifty Ways to Leave Mama Pyjama Or Still Boring After All These Years” Simon was “elected” to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That’s like George W. Bush’s “election” in the 2000 presidential race. All communiqués to the media about the bombing will be from The G. G. Allin Liberation Front. He should be in the fucking Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not wankers like the aforementioned or fucking Elton John and the cocksucking Bee Gees.”

F: “Or is it “the fucking Bee Gees and cocksucking Elton John?” But in any event I would advise you to save your Semtex for a less risible target.”

G: “Darts?”

Two Alternatives for Ground Zero

Since the wanker who owns the building site and the sleazeballs in the Port Authority and the government of the State of New York just aren't getting the job done, I feel obliged to present two alternative visions for the space that is now a gaping hole in the ground:

1) The World Trick Center

Taking a cue from how the descendants of the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam have organized commerce in their capital city, the new towers will become the center of the sex trade in Manhattan. Historically, this is appropriate, given that in the 18th century the prostitution trade in the city was centered in a park known as "Holy Ground", which was several blocks north of the WTC site. The name "Holy Ground" is a satirical reference to the fact that the park land was owned by the parish of St. Paul's Chapel.

The centerpiece of The World Trick Center will be Spitzer Plaza, a site for alfresco orgies, presided over by a statue in the style of Augustus St. Gaudens, in which the ex-governor is presented with a leering sneer on his face, left arm upraised holding a subpoena, trousers dropped to his ankles, one knee length sock raised to its full length, the other sock drooping down just above the ankle, penis hard and straight at a perpendicular to his torso, and a discarded unopened condom on the ground at his feet.

2) The World Trump Center

While it's true the buildings will be cheap, shoddy, glitzy, and as ugly as sin, at least they will be tall and they'll go up virtually overnight. Just don't walk anywhere near the cranes at the construction site...

Who is in Control?

This piece of graffiti was on the side of a building on the north side of East Fifth Street just east of Avenue A for a brief period of time in the mid-90s.

Barack W. Bush and Gatherer S. Thompson

Here is another small excerpt from "Barack W. Bush: The Prisoner of Kennebunkport":

This morning’s mail brought a new batch of waq from Gatherer. Waq is an (as yet) entirely legal hallucinogen with a pronounced comedic edge. Gatherer is Gatherer S. Thompson, one of the most brilliant biochemists on the planet, and the twin sister of Hunter S. Thompson, one of my all-time favorite writers. Gatherer and I met during the period of time in which I was trading light sweet crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange and living in Battery Park City (from where I was kidnapped by Secret Service agents acting on orders from Dick Cheney, and brought back to Kennebunkport where I remain in comfortable yet irksome confinement).

Another Recorded Song: "Villanelle for a Cocksucker"

Unlike the other two songs John Stanford and I have recorded over the past month, this one was written fairly recently (2005). It appeared in the short story "Nowhere to Hide: A Comedy of Manners or Lack Thereof", which was in The Velveeta Underground, my collection of short stories and one act plays published in 2006 as part of the EAA Signature Series, and now, alas, out of print. This was originally only envisioned as a poem to be read. The fictional "author" was Angie Wu, who scribbled it at the last minute, right before she was going to have to read a poem in Kenneth Koch's poetry class. The time is October, 1968. The place is The Lions Den, a somewhat seedy on-campus cafeteria that served as a hangout for the culturally radical fringe at Columbia. What follows is the lead-in to the poem and the poem (now song) itself:

After agreeing to take photographs of Will’s provocation, George headed to a table at the far back corner of the room where he saw Angie Wu leaning delicately over a notebook, writing rapidly. Angie was the most collegiate looking heroin abuser on the Columbia campus. George surmised that her genetic inheritance included dozens of generations of opium smokers. Angie's parents owned House of Wu, a restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland, but there was a strong military tradition in the family. Her father had been a general who backed Chiang Kai-Shek in the civil war against Mao and the Communists, and later emigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan after a falling out with Chiang. Angie was cute as a button, with a stratospheric IQ and the constitution of Keith Richards. She had two sets of friends. One was a circle of very prim and conservative Chinese-American girls. The other, of which she was the queen bee, was a group of rock and roller heroin boys. You didn't get into Angie's bed unless you shared a needle with her. At exam time there would always be one person designated to refrain from getting high. His job was to get Angie up at 6am, throw her into a cold shower and make sure she was out the door in time to get to her exams, which she always aced, seemingly without doing any studying. George had never gotten into Angie's bed. His fear of needles had won out over his desire for Angie. But he had, on more than one occasion, been the person who woke her up and threw her in the shower. Just as he reached the table, Angie stopped writing, looked up, smiled with the corners of her broad mouth turned up slightly, and remarked cheerfully:

"Georgie Kazoo. What synchronicity! I was just thinking about you. Or more precisely, I was thinking about how I'd love to hear you read out loud the poem I just finished writing for Kenneth Koch's class. Will you do me the honor?"

Taking the notebook from Angie, George read:

Villanelle For A Cocksucker

When I look at you down there on your knees
And see your mouth all filled up with my cock
I hear the jangling of a set of keys.

Should service rendered perchance fail to please
One can stand up and rapidly take stock
Of what is real and what is just a tease.

This bed of yours is all filled up with fleas
They've made a new home inside of my jock
And robbed me of my mirth and of my ease.

I'm leaving you and heading for the trees
Where I can watch the fattened seagulls flock
Like Nazis whom the Frogs and Brits appease.

My new home is a skyscraper by Mies
With penthouse door on which you shall not knock
And kitchen where you shall not eat my cheese.

I plan to spend the winters in Belize
Where I shall never glance up at a clock
Or fill my engine up with anti-freeze
Or once again look at you on your knees.

"Wow, that was great Georgie. You should be doing voiceovers. After
listening to you I think I'll have the confidence to read it in class.
Will you walk me over to Hamilton Hall?"

A Short Query (and Response)

"Sixteen sigma, what do you find?"

"Another day, deeper and lighter, in mind...."