we are all human
a shard pot, dropped, cracked
red is our life glue

0927 hours – Been up over an hour, drinking coffee, trying to clear my head of the ragged dreams from the dark. Listening to my wife’s music selection, from Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” to “Ventura,” by America, and then something by Dave Gates and Bread, followed up with a show tune from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ where the singer is defending Mary Mag’s virtue.

She’s busy painting the outside of the garage door leading from our front room and into the garage. Tried to help her, by removing the deadbolt from it. This thing is like no deadbolt I’ve ever seen before. Sucker is stuck in there, but good. She told me to forget it. She’ll paint around it.

Had to rework my haiku poem from last night: “In Kerouac’s Fire.” It was part of one of my many weird dreams that included attending a British War Memorial, bagpipes and all. Frightening faces of dead soldiers pulling up in coal train carriages for the services is a tad bit disconcerting.

Haven’t even taken a shower yet and probably won’t till much later. My hair stands at attention, saluting in all sorts of directions. Funny actually. And I gotta find my glasses again.

A motorized para-sail is buzzing above our neighborhood and there is the smell of wildfire in the morning air. I’m thinking it is to the west of us, beyond Hungry Valley.

Gonna have another cup of coffee and enjoy, Michael Martin Murphy’s ‘Wildfire,’ a song I used to close out my nighttime broadcasts with back before the corporations took over programming all the damned radio stations in the universe.  People still debate the meaning behind the lyrics — I love that.

“Yes the cross-sawed redwood log turns into a coal and looks like a City of the Gandharvas or like a western butte at sunset.” Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

the city burning
resin redwood log aglow
fire bombing past

Been picking at the idea like one picks at a week old scab, that I should give up writing stories. I don’t drink enough to call myself an alcoholic, through you shake my family tree and several or more would fall out, never spilling a drop, nor am I an addict either to pill or to needle.

Therefore, I’ve come to realize that I will never be a giant in the field of writing, because I haven’t a truly singular voice. Nope, mine is a conglomeration of those who’ve written what I’ve read, my grand-folks, parents and the little kid next door.

Taking my rightful place at the back of the line, I should simply journal, make a record of my days, nights, things in between. After all, I’m not writing to live, rejection notices abound on this fact, but rather living to write, where the words are free and the view is stressless.

Besides, who needs another writer, we’re a dime a dozen and each of us has a tale to tell and oft times it is the same tale, only using different words. So, whadda ya say, shall I go forth with the Diary of a Mad Writer?

“2020,” written by Stephen King, film directed by Quentin Tarantino, and narrated Samuel L. Jackson.

Left my computer for half-an-hour, the god-damned blinking cursor pounding in my eyes giving me a headache.
Sat outside for a quarter hour, until it got too hot for me; only 98 and not yet noon.
Wonder what it’ll be like by three or four, zenith of the sun and the heat.
Wife has me back inside, helping with the door locks and some painting.
She going to the store to buy new ones, get them keyed.
Why it made me think of this I don’t know: a 1968 Chrysler Newport I was given.
1979 and the guy was getting out of the service, heading home to Cleveland, Ohio.
Didn’t want the car, gave me the pink and keys.
I learned the damned thing didn’t run.
Chrysler keys are easy to spot, to feel, they have a hexagon shape.
I know this because I owned a Dodge Charger, a Chrysler product, while in high school.
Maybe it was the idea of keying the house that sent me down that rabbit hole.
I got that car up and running and drove it all over the place.
Gave it to a woman working at a hamburger joint.
I didn’t need the oil-burning son-of-a-bitch anymore.
In fact, she needed it more than I ever did.
She was from New York.
She got herself abandoned by a boyfriend, heading west.
She found work, but always wanted to return to ‘upstate,’ and home
A Rosalyn Russell-type, 5-11, chunky, dark hair piled high, 42-D, bright red lipstick and nails.
Italian.
One hell of a woman, indeed.
The thought of her makes me wonder whatever happened to her.
Did she make it ‘upstate?’
Did the Newport crap out on her as she made the New Jersey Turnpike?
Is she alive still and if so how’s she faring through the pandemic?
Fuck, who knows.
I’m doing pretty damned good.
Think I was built for this shit.
Re-read a couple of novels by Kerouac and Steinbeck.
Read my first novel by Stephen King.
Felt like I was popping my cherry all over again.
Can’t remember what the hell the title was or even what the story was about.
Never really like the man anyway – his politics pisses me off.
Popular writer, though, can’t fault him on that.
Don’t understand why millionaires become Socialists as they get richer and older.
I have no plans to get rich, so nobody has to worry about me switching ‘sides.’
I’m trying to finish ‘Fear and Loathing,’ by Hunter Thompson.
Whadda fucking weirdo, what a fucking writer.
Never been a real fan of disjointed prose, but in his case, an exception has been made.
All this reading makes me wanna write even more.
Authored two books, both qualified duds, the second a worse failure than the third.
Should I make it an even three?
Third times a charm right?
“Very Short Stories from a Pandemic.”
or
“Pandemic Tales from Nowhere, Nevada.”
Got artwork for that; a picture I took a year or so ago.
No artwork, then it never existed.
No proof, then it didn’t happen.
Nothing is happening for now, save the ‘big wait.’
Simply waiting for the other shoe, boot, sandal, slipper to drop.
When it does, it won’t be any surprise if it ends up shoved in our asses, somehow.
Things were simpler back in 1979, the year a guy, whose name I can’t recall gave me a car.
Long time ago and not so very long ago.
Christ, I miss that Chrysler.
I miss me.

Singer Taylor Swift has made a career out of singing about her poor choices in men, and now she wants us to vote for Joe Biden.

It’s been a generation, perhaps two ago, and while I didn’t make a lot of money, I had enough to treat me and Adam to few soda pops and comic books from the Woodland Villa. I was nine, maybe 10-years-old, when I decided to take Dad’s wooden Ronson Shoe Shine Kit down to the Klamath courthouse at the corner of Redwood Drive and Highway 101.

Such childhood faith.

For ten-cents a pair, I’d apply some black or brown Kiwi polish to the shoe/boot offered, buff it in and then with an appropriate rag (brown or black) I’d shine them up. It was a lot of fun and looking back I think it took a number of men back into their youth and it may have relieved some of their stress of having to face Judge Hopper.

Nowadays, the majority of shoes I see worn out and about are clothe, a tennis shoe or sandal. And kids no longer know or understand the art of the shoe shine or the shoe shine stand.

Then one day the county decided to shutter the auxiliary courthouse, Judge Hopper retired shortly thereafter and like that, that was the end of my professional shoe shining days.

The showers ended
Sunshine and grass remain
Mosquitoes alive

I don’t cuss, but I do speak fluent Marine with a hint of trucker, logger and construction worker.