foto by smith
it’s 4 in the morning and i feel like the unwiped backside of some cosmic debris – i can’t breathe, my throat’s swollen swallowless, and my normal ever-present ambient pain level is amped to the gills. reality’s telling a joke and i’m its bad backass punch line.
there’s nose pills i can take (actifed), but they make sleep difficult for me the 24 hours following. . . yet they knock lady out – go figure. sometimes it’s hell being a mutant. when i take just one in the morning, i twitch all the next night and drive lady crazy and sleepless until i come out here and lay my 75 inch body across this 48 inch couch.
reminds me of a great song though — Tossin’ & Turnin’ – Bobby Lewis (1961). there’s a lot i’m grateful for in my life – glad i was raised in the country by loving parents in the pacific northwest in the “innocent” 1940s & 50s, glad i caught the late 60’s hippy dippy drug n love wave in baltimore, and i’m oh so ever glad i was there for the birth of rock and roll.
so weird going from How Much Is That Doggie in the Window by Patti Page in 1952 to 1956 Hound Dog Elvis. like john lennon said, before elvis, there was nothing. except of course there was – there was rhythm n blues, black swamp funk, boogie woogie, jump blues, western swing, hillbilly boogie and that rockabilly thing – not to mention jazz and jump jive swing.
i stopped listening to the radio 20 years ago – heard too much before and too little since…. though there’s still great stuff all along the way – devo, talking heads, clash, radiohead, david bowie, meat beat manifesto, bonnie raitt, the grassy knoll, the artist often named prince, dead kennedys, the never ending rolling stones, and the king of it all bob dylan. forgive me for not mentioning the other 88 worthies, but this head mucous of mine slows thought.
can’t believe this has taken an hour to write – it’s 4:55 – but it’s helped me not take an Actifed, given the aspirin a chance to kick in, let some of the nose slime ooze down my upright throat, and given me the chutzpah to lie down again, see if i can breathe, maybe even sleep. if not, and i have to take a sinus pill, and i get 2 sleepless nights in a row before shouldering my world possessions in a pack on my back for the bus-train-bus trip tomorrow, well, it’s going to be a long way from here to barcelona.
ahhh, the truth i carry, the way the water went
foto by smith