life outside of me
is not
my respiratory,
is not my heart
beating?

it is
deep inside
to want
all or
nothing…
wanting everything
has left me
nothing but wanting

so i want for nothing
so i will always have everything i want.

i was sitting
behind a large road case
hunched over a Barco R12 projector
checking it out
before i set up two of them
stacked atop each other
atop a narrow
11 foot scaffold
in lot 6 at Ren-Mar Studios
(used to be Desilu),
a big soundpadded hangar
converted into a sexy
glamorous
television studio
to play
Britney Spears’ new music video
on a Britney Spears Television Special
for MTV
i was hired to set up the projection for.

“There he is.” Said one of the crew,
spotting me keeping it low key,
finally ready for me to set up.
“You’re like Charles Bukowski, perfectly hidden.”
“Ha, I love that guy” I say, jumping up and getting to work.

like Bukowski at 28
i remain
perfectly hidden,
lost amongst
the
mass,
growing
overwhelmingly
beautiful
in secret.

It’s phony
a plastic dream
to think
it
will be
given
like
a wish
granted.

Sitting in the lounge
at the hollywood renaissance hotel
with a co-worker,
a buxom,
cornfed midwestern
ALL-AMERICAN GIRL
with such long silky brunette hair
and such a cute
wholesome face
you just want to put
in every one
of your goddamn Disney movies,
turns to me and asks
“Is this where they’re holding the American Idol Auditions?”
“Really? Here?” I ask, taking for granted that i was in hollywood,
at the culminating point
of someones
hollywood dream.

“Yeah…” She said, like i was way out of the loop.
“In this hotel? Huh. That’s cool. Are you trying out?”
“Yeah. I’m trying to find where they’re meeting at.” She smiled
“Well there’s a recptionist chick upstairs, you might want to ask her.”
She giggled and walked into the Hollywood and Highland Shopping Center instead.

I have no fucking clue about American Idol.
You can’t operate in Hollywood in awe of it;
you can’t work for it;
you have to make it
work for you
if you plan to be a grand
Kubrick-like
puppetmaster
that is.

I just got done working until 10pm
at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel,
so i’m wearing all black:
shoes, dickies, shirt, hat.

My car broke down three months ago.
Gas prices were at $4.50 a gallon then,
so i said fuck you,
and didn’t bother buying a new car.

Some people appreciate me for doing it.
Most people are like “fuck that shit, you should get a car.”
I didn’t do it out of ultra-liberal GREEN protest,
i did it out of rational thinking:
a simple if/then logical statement:
if the cost for me to get to a place is less by public transportation
then why would i waste my money buying a car during the most fucked up economic period
in modern US history and give all my money (freedom) away to something
that causes war and air pollution?
The bus is natural gas
and the rail is electric.

So now i’m a character
in River City Ransom
on a mission to get from
Hollywood to South Los Angeles,
leaving the hotel at night
to descend
into the Hollywood/Highland Subway station.

I walk down the final set of steps
leading to the Red Line boarding station.

Across the station i notice a group
of latino gang members mobbing together
like a pack of wild dogs.
Big ones, and a small one,
the instigator.

I see every single one of them checking me out
as i walk down the steps
and post up right there,
relaxed, chillin.

I look around the station, taking it all in.
That’s when i notice them approaching me.
They walk as if they own the place,
spread out across the whole station,
two gangsters coming up on the left,
three on the right.

I continue chillin,
not letting on feeling threatened,
not paying any attention,
i got no business with them
so they better not have anything to say to me.

There was five of them,
big fuckers, pieces of shit,
worthless basura,
and here they were
trying to put the scare on me,
trying to intimidate me,
trying to see if they have power over me.

I stayed relaxed, chillin,
keeping an eye on their positions relative to me
avoiding eye contact beneath the bill of my hat;
having the same demeanor i would
had a pack of wild dogs rolled up on me.

“I don’t give a fuck about the police–” The instigator said.
These guys think i’m some kind of cop?

The small one’s always the most gangster of all,
wearing a wife beater to show off his Old English
tattoo on his upper back
and shorts to his ankles;
he starts pacing around in front of me
looking my way a couple times.

I don’t pay any attention to it.
It’s territorial pissings, its absurd,
these idiots still think they’re in a prison,
because of how imprisoned their minds are.

I’m curious now
and it would be taken as a sign of weakness if i didn’t;
i look up and make eye contact with him
then casually glance over at the rest of them
talking loudly to each other about
“some stripper bitch.”
Two of them look at me, the other two had backs to me.

I don’t give a fuck at this point. I start thinking:

I’ll kill the first one that attacks me,
that’s all i know,
if i’m attacked,
they’ll be pouring a 40
mourning another homies funeral
and they’ll learn the ultimate lesson
for fucking with the innocent.
Then I realize if i tried to fight them all
I’d probably end up getting killed:
shanked or shot.
5:1 odds suck…

The true wisdom
of the adrenaline moment would be
defend myself and run up the fucking steps
and get the fuck out of there.
I know i’m in better shape than these big
burrito/budweiser fat mother fuckers,
they wouldn’t be able to make it more than five or six steps.

I got my writers beard on,
do i look like i bang?
I don’t even have a tattoo to make me seem like any kind of tough guy or whatever.
Do these guys realize
that aside from special operations soldiers
no other law enforcement in the United States would allow me to go unshaven for three weeks?

Then one of the big guys says to the instigator,
“I’m a two striker homie. I’m not trying to get a third,”
and disperse back to the other end of the station.

The human mind has many subconscious levels of intuition,
pheremones and what not.
I made them uncomfortable
with the extreme ease
with which
i took being surrounded by them.
Those
dirtbags have developed a sense of smell
for fear,
like fucking animals.

I pull out my phone,
10:20pm.
I put it back and look up the steps
as a buff little black
pitbull gangster
with his shirt off
mobs down the steps belligerent
looking for trouble
“Where’s that mah-fucka nigga dat hit me?!”

He circles down the steps,
his plain white girlfriend tugging on him.
He walks right at me so i side step him.
His girlfriend has a smile on her face
and gives me a look like
“that’s my boyfriend, isn’t he a character?”

Then he goes back up the steps.
On the other side of the steps,
seperated by a gap,
a young black guy in a work uniform,
minding his own business,
is listening to an ipod.
I suppose the young guy looked at the belligerent gangster as
he was leaving,
“Whatch you looking at you bitch nigga?”
The guy makes a face like what? Why are you calling ME out?
“Look at this mah-fucka house nigga! Where you from?!”
“Nowhere.”
“That’s cause yous a bitch nigga!”
“Pshh–”
“Where you from lil’ homie?!” Says a gangster in a wheelchair
wearing a black nylon skullcap
who watched the whole thing next to me
and apparently had enough of the bullshit.
The little pitbull gangster looked down at him.
The gangster in the wheelchair
gave him a peace sign
like flipping him off
(get the fuck out of here, peace).
And without another word,
and a tug from his suburban white girlfriend,
he left
as the train arrived.

haha.
damn, could you imagine if McCain had been elected?
riots in every major city,
liberal whites
joining in
with blacks
mexicans
feelin’ oppression
expression
in demolition

“the conscious ones”
put on ski masks
and take out Best Buy
and Krogers,
while i hit the
sporting goods stores,
stockpiling
for when they start coming
door to door
like they practiced in Iraq.

i dont think
anything outside
the realm of possibility
is to be taken
lightly
and now
i have changed
i have
found the
possibility
taken
lightly
outside
and
now
sunshines
upon darkness,
hope replaces
the
fear
that
shadows
upon
the world

time to
glow again
like a life
soul
beacon
let everyone feel this place
lost
alone
in outer space
we have each other though
we have each other though
and though we might
not ever
see it grow
i know
i know
let my love flow
let my love go

I am not afraid to die
and so
you know

only love will let you go.

pretend i don’t exist, either.
i can’t pretend that anyone else
has ever compared to you since.

i can do nothing about
loving you
except
to remember
that
it doesn’t exist.

germs and virus
flow through us
mitochondria
live in us
this body is
a gift to us
how could we
be
so
careless
with
something
so precious?

my health
is my new
lesson (discipline),

lessin’
you
fixin’
to die
then
by all means
eat some more
frozen
chicken
pot pies.

en vino veritas
written on my
tombstone
but i keep
drinking
only dark dark
red
i just want to
be alive
before i am
dead
it’s all in our
head
and

its real.
there
really are planets
around suns
and this is a
song
for
everyones.

Feel
the space
that fills
this place
and see
what kind
of time
you’ll find,
i’m not looking
for
anymore
anymore

i feel this place
so raw
the only thing i can do
is try to(o)

i could feel it as it left
my soul
my self control
my whole reason.

I know it’s gone
because i don’t feel it anymore.