Friday, December 25, 2020

2CJ

When I drive down
Pacific Coast Highway
I bless the ocean
I bless the sky
and remember always
this is where Claudia Jennings
tragically died

Glittering glow girl
shimmering apparition under the disco ball
another centerfold shot
for a diamond hard apple 8-ball
silver tank top
glitter on your jeans
gritting your teeth
through another nude scene

Gator Bait
Deathsport
Unholy Rollers
Fast Company
looking so perfect
living so imperfectly

Malibu ocean’s drawn a veil
for Claudia’s tears
my frightened fractured
Playmate of the Year
holding hands to eternity
with Stratten, Monroe, Mansfield
and Thelma Todd
sorority of the damaged
celluloid gods

Friday, December 11, 2020

Reno, Tahoe, Vegas

Reno, Tahoe, Vegas
Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus
from the streets to the sheets
on my heels in my wheels
Reno, Tahoe, Vegas
black sheep to London, New York, and Paris

I went looking for America
but alas, she didn’t want me
no drugs in my jeans for her, you see
she was an opioid whore
gone to seed
sluttony, gluttony and selfish greed

Scarsdale to Scottsdale
Austin to Boston
give me your tired
give me your poor
so I can throw them in prison
that’ll teach them for sure

America cares
like a bandage at a beheading
the lizard eternally shedding
itself from the rest of the world
like a spoiled teenage girl

How can you call this
the land of the free
get me some drunks to spell “liberty”
line my jails with hobos and whores
white people lynching
round the Christmas tree

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Dreams That Money Can Buy

Dreams That Money Can Buy - Andy Seven Ltd

Thin emaciated petite
and pale blonde
she had the gift of grift
deaf mute picking pockets

Shoplift shuffles
watched by 69 eyes
circuito cerrado
like an electric fly
like a hydra
the larcenous Medusa
weaving through aisles at all the busy shop floors
drifting and floating her way out revolving doors

Hitting up subway trains
a restless madame
shifting fingers
which never linger
restless grabbing claws
without a pause

Jamming the aisles
are oceans of crowded men
she’s sacrificing herself
for a fondle or ten
as she grabs wallets and watches
and scattered foreign swatches

Handbags with trapdoors
passageways in her purse
the take on her bed
the harpy’s nest
Irish coffee and a smoke
as she kicks off
her high heels
she flies again in the urban dawn

Copyright 2020, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved. From the album Minstrels Anonymous, available on Bandcamp.

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Power Trio

Power Trio

Three guys walk into a bank
wearing cheap plastic rock star masks
there was Elvis, Gene Simmons and Ringo Starr
customers stood in line and
laughed at them

It was the day after Halloween
month end deposits
rent payments
welfare checks

Elvis swiveled his hips and flashed
white hot lead
shot the underpaid security guard dead

Well the laughter all stopped
and everybody dropped
Elvis covered the tellers
Gene Simmons swagged the merchants on the floor
while Ringo watched the door

Elvis shucked “thankyouvurrymuch”
Gene told everyone they should be honored he’s robbing them
and Ringo nervously tapped his feet

A few beats later you could hear a siren wailing
backbeat later a tear gas canister came crashing and sailing
Elvis moaned, “We’re caught in a trap,
we can’t walk out”

Shot Gene Simmons in the face and
his tongue flew off
then he shot Ringo in the neck
ever run riverrrun jugular fountain
then he put the gun in his mouth pulled the trigger
and went down to the edge of Lonely Street

Copyright 2020, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved.

From the album Minstrels Anonymous, now available on Bandcamp

Saturday, November 7, 2020

The Rooster Chews Tobacco

He awoke in bed in a crucifix position. He always found himself waking in the crucifix position, arms spread out to the edges of the bed and his legs locked together pointing down and his head pointing up to the ceiling. His eyes blinked once, twice and then he bent himself up in the bed, ruffling his hair.

He slept fitfully that night; he heard a lot of hooting and hollering outside. Not unusual for a marina where all the swells got drunk in their yachts and made a lot of noise. It bothered him because it was his first night out of jail and he wanted to have a peaceful night’s sleep in his houseboat, but no. Big Jason Gulliver was pissed.

“Fucking, fucking, fucking assholes”, Big Jason grumbled. “Fuckin’ lifestylers. Ruining the bay with their rich kid bullshit”.

He woke up in his street clothes, a soiled t-shirt and baggy fatigue pants. He leaned over to put on his Doc Martens when he saw a rat scurrying across the bedroom door. He picked up a boot and threw it at the rat.

“Get the fuck off my boat!” he yelled.

The bedroom was as Spartan as it gets. There was his bed, barely big enough to fit his gigantic frame; a small dresser filling in as a hamper as it collected an unwashed load of clothes; a tiny nightstand with a lamp for his paperback reading, and that’s it. The room was completed by a window with a dirty curtain faded by the sun.

On top of the dresser sat a cassette player with dozens of cassettes strewn about, some buried under a few banged-out paperbacks like Sartre’s “Nausea” and Burroughs’ “Nova Express”.

He got up to face the music, face the world, face the city that paid to put him away, and above all else face his friends, even the ones he owed money to. He fetched back his boot and put them on and walked out the front of his boat.

He stepped up to the dock where a blonde man with a trimmed beard waited for him.

“Oh hey, Jason, I figured it was you. You’ve got a phone call”.
“Tell them I’m still in jail. It’s probably somebody calling about their money”.
“Well, okay. I didn’t know you got out already”.
“Well, the fuckin’ rats didn’t know either, goddammit”, Jason cussed. “Got any coffee?”
“No, dude”, he moped. “Sorry”.

Big Jason lumbered up the dock towards the exit spilling out into the city street, looking around at the cars parked nearby.

“No, fuck it, just got out for that”, he thought. “Can’t jump back into it. Besides, someone might be waiting for me to do it again”. Still, he couldn’t resist ogling at the flashier cars parked around the corner.

He squinted his eyes shut and walked uphill towards the main street to get a cheap breakfast. He felt like a recovering addict, only instead of swearing off drugs he was swearing off theft.

Jason walked like an exiled minotaur, legs stomping spread far apart in a gesture of assertion, funny in contrast to how close his arms were kept to his chest, in the way a boxer keeps his arms and fists close to his face to provide protection in the ring. It might even be said that Big Jason either boxed at some time or trained for boxing during some chapter in his life. This gait was topped off with him leaning forward as he walked, his head and shoulders behaving like antennae, behaving like curb feelers on the lookout for trouble.

Did you ever eat breakfast without even enjoying a single bite? Jason hammered away his meal without really concentrating on what he was tasting, just going through the motions. It wasn’t what you’d call being in a trance. He simply had his mind on everything else but what was in front of him. Sitting in stir will do that to you.

He caught his reflection in the mirror across the room and saw a large, wide piece of half-sculpted concrete. His chin was large, his lips turned down, his short spiky hair crowning his head. The only thing dispelling all this facial cruelty was a set of calm, almost tired eyes. There was peace there while the rest of his body looked hard. He cut an ominous figure but there was something downbeat in his demeanor.

All this soul transference felt harmful because he was too young for such divisions in his mind. While he acted dumb and simple on the outside it was a crowded theater on the inside, thousands of ideas and thoughts racing through his mind like an electrical storm.

He paid his bill and walked out of the cafĂ© in a trance, slowly trotting down the hill back to the narrow street at the bottom of the hill. An endless line of parked cars showed themselves off to him as he walked by. His eyes flashed at the flashier cars and he felt the tingle, the irresistible urge building inside of him. It wasn’t fair; he was just released for stealing them and here they were heartlessly teasing him.

It was a veritable feast of automotive beauty, steel and chrome pulchritude igniting flames of vehicular lust, daring him to commit another theft. Jason slowed down his pace and turned around, then looked across the street, then craned his head to see if anyone was leering overhead somewhere.

It was a rare moment when there was just him and his urges left alone on the concrete midway. He began appraising his prospective choices: there was the tan Cadillac, “too fogie, no punk would be caught in this thing”; the red Firebird, “perfect looking sled, but red just screams out everybody look at me, I’d get picked up in less than five minutes”; the black Mercedes Benz, “yeah okay, graduation present from Dad, I won’t arouse suspicion pulling this one”.

He looked around one last time, leaned his hips against the driver’s side, reaching for his keys and then broke out chuckling. The window was rolled down.
“Fuckin’ rich people have the dumbest confidence”, he chortled. No need to jimmy the door.

He swung right in, plopped on the red leather upholstery, and quickly reached under the dashboard. He pulled down a few wires, cut off the casing and twisted the bare wires, connecting them, starting the engine quickly.

He popped in the cigarette lighter and grabbed a smoke from the pack on the dashboard, lighting it up. The radio blared out a Grateful Dead song loudly and he turned it off. He pulled out into the empty street and shifted it into a higher gear.

The Benz gave a slight jerk and Jason frowned. “This one’s got shitty transmission. You never can tell if these classy rides are in good shape or not. This one’s a turkey. Well, I’ll dump this in a little bit, but-Hello, who’s this?”

Jason saw a pretty Asian punk girl with spiky blonde hair in a black tee, leather miniskirt and fishnets hitching at the end of the corner. He rolled right up and leaned across the seat.

“Hey, hop in”, he bellowed. “I’m going your way”.
She stared at him for a second and asked, “Do you know where I’m going?”
“Doesn’t matter, babe, I’ll take you there”.
She stared at the inside of the car, appraising it. “Red bucket seats. Okay, but no funny stuff!”
He cranked the door open and she got in. He watched her beautiful legs slide into the front seat.

“So where are we going, gorgeous?”
“Telegraph Hill”.
“Okay, cool”. He let out the clutch and it gave a slight jerk. She chuckled, grabbed a cigarette from the pack on the dashboard and lit up.
“Hey man, this car is pretty bomb”, she puffed.
“For real, you Japs know a lot about bombs, huh?”
“I’m no Jap, asshole, I’m Chinese”.
“I know, I was just testing you”.
“The fuck you were!” she puffed away like an angry dragon.

“I’m Big Jason”, he smiled at her. “You know, I’ve seen you around somewhere”.
“Yeah, you look familiar”, the girl calmed down. “I’m Suzy, Suzy Wrong. I think…I think I saw you at The Mab once”.
“The Nuns show, I was the one the bouncers tried to kick out but I put up a fight. I wore them out, though, so they let me stay in. Assholes”.
“Assholes!” she cackled.

The car jerked sporadically and Big Jason mumbled, “Smooth ride, huh?”
“Is this really your car?”
“Sure it is! Graduation present from Dad”.
“Where did you graduate?” she asked skeptically.
“University of Alcatraz, baby doll”.

Suzy stared at him for a second, and then laughed. “Yeah, you were the big guy the bouncers couldn’t take down. My friends watched that go down. It was more exciting than the show”.
“Should’ve charged people to watch”. Jason tossed his butt out the window.

“Big tough guys. You’re all a dime a dozen”, Suzy stared at him while her slender hand wandered down to his crotch, rubbing his thick tool against the fabric of his coarse jeans.
He glanced at her from the side and caught her licking her lips.

“Hey, baby, ever been in a houseboat? With beer and pizza?”
“Sounds like a date”, she caressed his unit tenderly. “Let’s make it”.

He dumped the Benz a block away from the docks and they walked down to his houseboat.

One hour later Suzy was in his bedroom wearing nothing but his t-shirt and drinking out of a large bottle of wine from the fridge. She spit some all over his tense, prodigious tool and went to work on him. She tasted the wine and he tasted freedom, among other things.

Friday, October 30, 2020

A Boy And His Lute

Since my birthday falls this Saturday (the 31st) I decided to treat myself to a cool birthday present, namely a video of my recent poem The Scenester. Because I accoimpany myself on mandolin I used a lot of photos of myself playing the instrument at home and at play. I edited most of it on an ancient Corel movie software. I encourage all writers out there to record themselves and film themselves as often as possible. Anyway, enjoy at your own peril :)

Friday, October 23, 2020

Suburban Adam And Eve

SUBURBAN ADAM AND EVE

There were green lawns with sprinklers
shooting water towards the azure sky
Spanish tile towered with television antennae gables
tropical palm trees swaying in the soft wind
blowing away dark gray clouds coughing out of battered station wagons

Things were cool when I was sixteen years old
there was the girl, with her long, dark, wet brown hair
which often fell into her dark, wet brown eyes
she gave me a dark brown smile and said,
“wait a minute”

She climbed over the backyard fence
and I waited
I heard her voice over the fence,
“well come on”
I climbed over the fence too

She stood next to her neighbor’s peach tree
she pulled off a peach and handed it to me
“bite” she said
I bit into the soft flesh of the fuzzy fruit
the juice ran all over my hands
she took my hands holding the bleeding fruit

She bit deep into the fuzzy peach
her eyes boring into me
her warm, hungry, brown eyes not moving away from me
the stare of a tiger
the stare of a wolf

This is the way it began
and this is the way it goes on
Eden in suburban Culver City

**************

ROBODYKE

Bamalama bamalama Ooh poo padou
i have a rhythm machine
i call her Robodyke
there's a woman in there
big thick arms
flat top head
chews tobacco when she plays
she hits to kill

When i'm wearing guyliner
she says
"hey, slugger
why you're just a cute lil' bitch, arent'ya?"
shut up and play, Robodyke

Robodyke never lets me down
never gets tired damn her
when i turn her off
she lights up a lucky
cackles like a hen on fire
"hey, slugger
i'll bet your cock tastes like teen pussy"
shut up, Robodyke

You just want to be
a French sailor
comme Jean Genet

Painting by Evelyn De Morgan

Friday, October 9, 2020

Chatty Charlie

CHATTY CHARLIE

Chatty Charlie was two feet high
he was vinyl from head down to his little rubber shoes
except for his smartly tailored suit and snappy bowtie
bow tie daddy
with a string in the back he was dapper as fuck
but he had enough he had enough

Got up from the sofa and
put his adorable vinyl fingers to his mechanical mouth
ripped out a whistle
Talking Mike kicked his way out of his carrying case
Talking Mike had a sky-high matchstick of thatchy red hair
they both slowly trotted
like ventriloquist dummies always do to the kitchen

Chatty Charlie got on Talking Mike’s shoulders
raised up to the cutlery board
grabbed two sharp long knives
hopped back down and they
tramped on down to Barney’s bedroom

Barney snored
like a rusty saw across a Plymouth Barracuda car hood
Chatty Charlie slowly rotated his head over to Talking Mike
Talking Mike wanted to wink
but nobody was pulling his string

Chatty Charlie climbed to the left of the bed
Talking Mike climbed the right
plunging their knives into Barney
again and again and again
Barney screaming and bleeding
too late to fight

Blood soaking until it
looked like a scarlet waterbed
Chatty Charlie finally said, “Fuck you. That’s what you get for asking me about school, you bastard”.
Talking Mike said, “I did all the singing. All he did was drink water”.
never piss off a dummy with a knife

Ace Farren Ford & Andy Seven - Coaxial, Downtown Los Angeles (January 2020)

Submitted for your review is the last performance I gave before the COVID-19 specter hit the scene, playing tenor saxophone to Ace Farren Ford's alto saxophone at performance space Coaxial in downtown Los Angeles. It was a decent show, loud, wild and just long enough to stay in your memory. Enjoy. (Thanks to Daniel Kirby)

Friday, October 2, 2020

Stainless Steel Trees

STAINLESS STEEL TREES

I am cool, polished marble
i lie under stainless steel trees
around a lush green velvet lawn

Chameleons change to survive
changing to survive
too many destroying flesh
killing flesh
burning skin
and flesh
and bone
and hair

Change to survive
no more skin
no more flesh
no mare bone

So muuch killing
means nothing will ever
be the same

Change to survive
want to stay alive
like a chameleon
like a Rodin like a Henry Moore like a Michelangelo

I am cool, polished marble
smooth to the touch
frozen to the ends of time
with my stainless steel trees

Painting - The Big Game by Bernard Buffet.

Friday, September 25, 2020

The Ratodrome (For El Lobo Blanco)

I’m going to tell you a story
I promise it won’t be boring
Monsieur Lacheur
Lacheur Monsieur

Twas known as The Rat Man
a real gone cat, man
big long nose, lime green eyes
rat hair coat much too big for his size
Rat fur? Fur what? Fur rats!
Rat-a-tat-rat

Busted top hat lined with black rat hair
capped stringy locks which never showed care
necklace round his neck of rodent bones
bracelets of rat skulls as hard as stones
Monsieur Lacheur
Lacheur Monsieur

Walking down the cobblestones his hungry hound
to the roundhouse grindhouse down ground round
sweaty old space filled with men of great wealth
well-kept ladies hungry for a taste of hell

(Isn’t it funny how wealth and hell rhyme? Back to my story)

Welcome to The Ratodrome!

Rat Man steps into the pit with his hungry hound
money changes hands the bell is rung
release the rats release the hound
growling, squeaking, men all shouting cacophonic sounds
Monsieur Lacheur
Lacheur Monsieur

The street vermin race to the circular wall
the hound grabs their necks in his bloody fanged jaws
cracking their heads with his ravenous fangs
bloody rat claws twitching as their intestines go bang!

The noble rich men clutch clammy pale breasts
with their sweaty little hands
mamzelles laugh brashly, acidic champagne
seeping through their glands

The hound races round the circle
grabbing three at a clip
bones crunching to his munching
tearing them apart in his canine championship
Quelle domage quelle fromage quelle damage

Counter jots down how many how quickly
as the mamzelles begin to feel quite sickly
20 dead rats lie twitching in a heap
there’s no damn inheritance waiting for the meek

Monsieur Lacheur gets his fistful of francs
bloody bloody money death has no thanks
that’s all folks c’est terminĂ© for cheap thrills
would you believe the wrong rats were killed

Friday, September 18, 2020

The Scenester

The SCENESTER

A waterfall of ink black hair
spilling out of my painted skull
like a curtain about to open
over my face for the horror show

where do all the wild boys go

Big long restless hands like
bear paws falcon claws
punching writing washing playing
feminine lips trying to follow what I’m saying

Brown eyes turn to blue
like a crumbling lighthouse
with the light slowly dimming
eardrums smashed from too many nightclubs
like a deaf tom cat

closed captioned for the hearing impaired

Wide hips composed by my mother
shake it to industrial bands
endlessly running legs
endlessly tired legs
dance to the beat

let’s go back to the big long hands

*************

So in addition to recording this poem I thought it was time to get some of my mandolin in on the action. My playing is a little rough and the editing is even rougher, but it's okay. After this lockdown is over, I'm going to head over to a decent recording studio and engage in some decent overdubs. Should be good.

The echo on my voice was largely inspired by vintage country records, where the narrator talks about how he's serving time in prison for killing a man who took his beloved, forcing him to do the unthinkable. I love those records, and as long as I was doing a weird self-pitying narration here was my golden opportunity.

PM junk

him: Hey!!
me: hi
him: So, what’s going on?
me: nothing, what’s up?
him: I’ve been checking you out. You’re all kinds of fine. So, what’s going on? May I ask you personal question?
me: um, well…
him: Are you trans?
me: what?
him: Are you trans? Coz, you no, you’re like a hot chick but you have dude’s name.
me: I’m not trans, I’m me.
him: Are you trap? I’m from Pakistan. It’s a long way from you. So, are you trap?
me: no, I’m a boy.
him: I could make you feel like a woman. I have beautiful gray beard. Did I offend you? Are you trans?
me: what?
him: You look like a pretty girl. Do you like violent sex?
me: oh….you’re from Pakistan. I’ll bet the heroin there is totally pure. send me a few bags…Hazan, is that your name? send me a couple of balloons, Hazan.
him: No, I want to have sex with you, pretty girl.
me: sex is nothing, heroin is everything. send me your desert drugs.
him: You’re just a dirty drug addict! You’re filth! You disgust me, Trans! I spit on you, you ugly witch whore!
me: ah…so how about those balloons Hazan?
NO REPLY
BLOCK

Friday, September 11, 2020

Albert Ayler

ALBERT AYLER

Albert Ayler is haunting your town
Albert Ayler makes a joyous sound
two-tone head and a saxophone voice
he and his brother have come to make noise

A joyous noise check it out now
military marches, spirituals and nursery rhymes
starting out like a little cartoon mouse
and then roaring and screaming like an uncaged lion

Sweet and innocent like the newborn day
carnival tunes deconstructed into sonic ferocity
like the screaming of a people
begging for salvation in prayer

“We rejoice in the beauty of God’s name with noise” – Andy Seven, Trash Can School Deep South tour 1992

Albert Ayler set list:
HOLY ghost
the truth is marching IN
SPIRITS rejoice
light in DARKNESS
omega is the ALPHA
Spiritual REBIRTH
INFINITE spirit

But alas, being black where the only color white can see is white
so much white until they’re blind
Albert Ayler felt despair and sadness
and drowned himself in New York’s East River

Listen to Albert Ayler
he played with innocence, turning into sadness,
moving into outrage, protest music we can still feel now
protest music we still need now

Albert Ayler came to town
Don’t forget what Albert Ayler’s putting down

Saturday, August 15, 2020

The Multimedia Poet Refuses To Die!

NERDY GIRL

Oh, Nerdy girl, nerdy girl
put down that book
put down that Playstation 69
and take me, take me, take me
have your way with me
ravish me to the very core of my soul

Nerdy girl, nerdy girl
I want to be your hentai slave boy
when I see the sweat pouring down your forehead
with insecurity
it makes the blood in my balls boil
like an overheated beaker
in the laboratory you probably interned at

Ride me topside like a cowgirl
tell me of quantum physics
every endangered species of wood, birds and marine life
as you lovingly fondle me as you would a slide rule
violate my starving flesh as you would a t-square
as you recite every Green Lantern in the DC Universe

Nerdy girl, nerdy girl
I want to steam up your glasses
the more awkward you get
the more I love it
tear all my clothes off
like it’s a bold science experiment
as you explain every formula in Microsoft Excel, Visio and Access

My first collection of poetry, Year of The Bat will be released this Labor Day weekend. Instead of doing a full promotional burst on every social network I decided to record some of my poetry as audio tracks and do a few readings on video. The audio tracks can be heard and shared on SoundCloud and the videos would be distributed evenly between Vimeo and You Tube.

A few months ago I posted Hollywood Is Killing Me on SoundCloud, a track I really enjoyed recording. Filled with inspiration I went back to recording another poem. this one titled Nerdy Girl, which can also be read in Year of The Bat. This turned out pretty well, too, and I'm already making plans to record a newer poem. I feel like Ken Nordine!

Brake Job - Andy Seven

But sometimes people feel more connected when they can actually see the poet reading his work in person, so for the people who prefer that format I give you a peronal reading of another poem titled Brake Job. This is a prose version of the countless hustles from service centers trying to weasel more of my hard-earned money for bigger repair jobs, all driven by the fear factor. I thought I captured the panic mode these shrewd sales people employ.

The Band Didn't Show Up - Andy Seven

Some folks have nightmares where they're on stage naked and getting laughed at. Since I like my body that nightmare doesn't really scare me, so instead I have this recurring nightamre where I'm ready to pterform a big show and the rest of the band stands me up, leaving me to carry the whole show alone. Hmmm, well now that I've embraced folk music that bad dream is over too, because I plan on doing all my shows solo. Wonder what the new nightmares will be like?

What's the moral to this story? It's very simple: if you can't get people to read anymore then get thy ass up on that soapbox and read in front of a camera lens where people can see you - yes, they will watch - or record your work with a hip music track jamming out. If nobody gives a damn about Emile Zola anymore then they certainly won't be booking it to Barnes + Noble to pick up your masterpiece, so slap on some makeup and work that close-up. And promise me you won't be boring.

Electric Mandolin II - Andy Seven

Andy Seven - Copyright 2020, Nerdy Girl, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved.

Friday, July 17, 2020

Tales From The Dance Floor

Before fascism overtook the United States I discovered industrial dance with an urge to live a few moments of Weimar Germany in Hollywood, like Sally Bowles filtered through KMFDM and their like. If Trump, The Proud Boys and The Fake National Guard were going to stain the American flag then I was going to deal with it like a Weimar German. I danced on a floor of fire as America burned.

I took a spiritual left turn at Greenland and never came back. I embraced dancing and the dance floor with a passion I hadn’t experienced in years. I watched cybergoth dancers on You Tube with religious devotion, and when I got tired with that I turned to videos of Bob Fosse and Gene Kelly. I even watched Flip Wilson and Art Carney, who might have been dancing for laughs but still showcased an uncanny grace in the way they moved.

In early 2017 I began hitting the goth clubs dancing to darkwave, witch house, industrial and ye olde goth. I also went to electronica, trip-hop and dubstep shows on the side where there was some great dancing, too.

I’ve danced in crowded ballrooms and I’ve also been the lone dancer in an empty club with just me and the DJ. I didn’t give a damn; I came to dance whether there was anybody there or not. More than a few DJ’s marveled at my resilience in dancing non-stop to their music in an empty room.

A lot of clubs play dance floor favorites like I Sit On Acid By Lords of Acid, The Devil Does Drugs by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Hallucination Generation by The Gruesome Twosome, and that Halloween song by Ministry, among others. These are tried and true hits at the clubs because they make you want to move.

Some DJ’s are pretty lazy, though. One immediately comes to mind that plays literally the exact same playlist every month and he gets away with it. The clubs are always jam-packed for him, so obviously people love his playlist.

Sometimes a DJ works the dance floor into a frenzy, playing one song after another with the momentum building higher and higher, then they kill it by putting something really slow or undanceable on, and everybody slowly drifts to the back of the room. It takes a while to win us back over.

Let’s talk about couples, the lumpy tire on the dance floor. They bring a lot of drama to the dance floor in a variety of ways. Let’s list them:

1.The Territorial Couple: Even if the floor is totally empty they’ll want to dance EXACTLY in your space, practically pushing you off the floor because they just have to dance where you’re standing. This is either a sign of annoying assertiveness on their part or they think you’re such an awesome dance they just have to shimmy right next to you.

2.The Jealous Boyfriend: If you’re a really good dancer then a girl might say a few too many nice things about your dancing to her boyfriend, and the next thing you know the boyfriend has to practically shove his way in front of you. This is his way of showing you and her who’s the boss, lol. Annoying as hell.

3.The Embarrassed Boyfriend: A lot of straight guys either hate dancing or are terrified of looking foolish trying to dance, so some try to goof around on the floor dancing like it’s just a big joke. I see this more at rock dance clubs than the goth ones, where masculinity is a big issue for some of these boys.

Let’s talk about masculinity and dance: at some clubs it’s assumed because I love to dance it somehow means I’m gay. On more than a few occasions out of nowhere an extremely aggressive dude just jumps right in front of me and insists on dancing right in front of my face. This forces me to make a professional basketball player’s pivot around them and dance in the opposite direction.

The scary part is when they won’t take no for an answer, and continue pursuing me around the club all night. And you ladies insist we men don’t understand what it’s like to be sexually harassed? I could write a book.

Men, men, men: I’ve been to some clubs where you couldn’t dance in peace because the security guards kept weaving through the crowd on the floor acting like they’re in a scene in some high-octane action film. Nobody in the crowd is fighting, there’s no trouble at all. Just a bunch of burly clods pushing and shoving their way around the floor acting important. That club’s gone now. Can’t say I miss it much.

But enough about everybody else, let’s talk about me: You need to really love to dance, love to dance no matter what’s being played because dance is life, dance is love, dance is poetry which doesn’t need words.

You have to love to dance so much it doesn’t matter that some sadistic DJ feels like shooting gallons and gallon of smoke into your face all night and filling the room with so much smoke you can barely breathe, or the DJ who wants the room completely dark so you’re literally dancing in darkness, no lights save for maybe a video of vampires and witches killing each other.

You have to love to dance so much that when people are sitting around in a complacent state you step right up to them and dance like a dervish in front of them, throwing down and daring them to get the fuck up and stomp with you. And they do. That’s better than goth, that’s punk as fuck.

You have to love to dance so much that after you dance for an hour at Bar Sinister you walk right by a couple (that two-headed monster again) and they both shake your hand because they tell you that they loved what they saw, it was something really amazing to them, not taking the piss, either.

And that’s the beauty of dance, if you can rouse a crowd into getting up and moving in several clubs or entertaining some people at another, then you’ve drawn a line in the sand, or better yet, on the dance floor.

Friday, June 19, 2020

Aladdin I. Shadow

A young man stood against the wall in front of a night club. It was after eleven o’clock at night.

Aladdin I. Shadow had platinum blonde hair and a chiseled face, which made him look like a young Greek god of sorts. He wore elephant flares that would have made him trip all over himself had it not been for the three inch platforms that he wore. The platform shoes were a dark gold with brass heels and soles and went Click Clack, Click Clack. When he walked he made a sound like a broken clock.

Tonight he wore a red and silver lurex shirt which he would open as far down as his mood permitted him. If his he felt alright the shirt would be buttoned midway down his chest, if he was down it could be buttoned up to the throat, and if he was really happy it would be buttoned down to the navel. This kept the boys happy and the girls even happier.

His mood was just so-so, hence the shirt open midway down his chest. He was a funny sort, not an actor but more of a reactor. This meant that he hung out a lot but didn't really instigate anything, making him instantly likeable to everyone. He went with the flow as long as someone else started it.

Mood was a very important component in his life. When he was up he was called Lad and when he was down he was simply called Shadow. Things were complicated in his mind but to others they probably looked simple. That’s the way things always look when you’re eighteen years old.

A tall girl with brown hair cut in a shag hooked her arm around his and without slowing down her walk pulled him into the club.
“What gives?” Lad asked her.
“You looked all glum and mopey just standing outside on the sidewalk all by yourself”, she said, topping it off with a sweet kiss to his face.
“You take me too seriously, Raggedy Jane”.
“No, you do!”

Raggedy Jane dressed like a big glam doll with huge red spots on her cheeks and large distended false eyelashes sticking out of a pale baby face looking like a doll gone berserk. Her clothes were a jumble of thrift shop left-behinds with some sharp glam fashions, so she’d tie a lumberjack shirt like a halter above a pair of glittery hot pants.

“Gimme a stick of gum!” she barked, going through the pockets of Lad’s tight pants.
“Gimme a second to give you one!” he barked back. He reached into his jacket and pulled out two sticks.
“Here, take two. That ought to keep your mouth full for a change”.
“Danke schoen!” she slugged, jamming the two sticks in her heavily lipsticked maw.

The club stank heavily of stale beer with the walls wrapped in cheap pine. Posters of Mick Jagger and Marc Bolan greeted them as they walked in. There were several lipsticked kiss marks around Mick Jagger’s crotch. Marc only had one. Further down the bar was a mirrored dance floor.

The DJ in the booth was playing “Dynamite” by Mud. The Chinn-Chapman style drums beat a deep, thick tattoo that penetrated every corner of the club.

“She comes in looking like dynamite”, the band wailed over the powerful drumbeat.

“I ALWAYS COME IN LOOKING LIKE DYNAMITE!” Jane yelled in Lad’s ear as they entered the fray. Kids were dancing and showing off with glitter on their cheeks and tops of metallic colors with high-rocketed shoes and boots intended to upstage each other with height.

They went into a hip-swinging dance until Raggedy Jane leaned over and saw a girl in the crowd and began waving her arms broadly like a lunatic.

“LITTLE DOT! LITTLE DOT! OVER HERE, WHORE!” Jane yelled, making Lad’s ears ring even louder. He turned slightly and saw their friend Little Dot somehow dancing and pivoting closer and closer towards them on the dance floor.

Little Dot earned her name because like the comic character wore nothing but polka dots, the louder the better. Her dresses, shoes and handbags were always in polka dots. Once she tried to bleach her hair to have polka dots but it nearly fell out completely, so she settled for a blonde Veronica Lake waterfall instead.

“Raggedy Jane! Aladdin!” Little Dot smiled, not missing a step to the Mud song as it faded and Showaddywaddy started up with their one good tune. Aladdin smiled quietly.

“Dot, I love your Garbo look tonight, how fantabulash!” Jane screamed, hugging Little Dot as showingly as possible.
“No, bitch, I’m Dietrich tonight, not Garbo!” Little Dot yelled back as they traded invisible kisses on each other’s cheeks.

“I’ll be right back”, Aladdin said as he walked off the floor towards the bar.

A tall boy with a fuzzy Afro and bright red overalls waved Lad over. “Hey, brother, long time no see!”
“Hey, Gunk! What are you drinking?”

The kid called Gunk made a bitter face and grumbled, “Ginger beer”.
Lad laughed and Gunk then smirked, “Want a sip?”

“No, I’ll wait until I’m old enough to drink real beer”.
“Hey, is your dad home?”
“No, he’s out with some broad in Murrieta Hot Springs or some shit like that”.
“Cool, man. We can raid his liquor cabinet while he’s out screwing Anita Bryant”.

Aladdin frowned. “Nah, he’s getting wise to me. I see pencil marks on the label now, so he suspects I’m jacking his sauce”. They both laughed. He looked at a round metallic disk on Gunk’s overall.
“Hey, you didn’t say anything about my Slade pin”, Gunk said. ” I made it myself”.
“It’s okay, I guess”, Aladdin said begrudgingly. It was a homemade creation in magic marker.

“What do you mean ‘it’s okay’? What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, you spelled everything right. If it’s Slade you’re supposed to misspell everything, like you’re trying to piss off your English teacher. ‘We’re all crazy’ is supposed to be spelled ‘WEER ALL CRAZEEE’”.
“Oh shit”, Gunk frowned.

“I’m going back on the floor”, Aladdin tapped his feet loudly. “Come on and join us!”
Gunk gaped at the girls on the dance floor.
“I want to bang Little Dot so bad”, Gunk gushed. “Put in a good word for me”.

“Little Dot doesn’t like sex. She’s so loaded all the time she doesn’t even remember what fucking means”.
“Don’t tell me that!”
“Bye”, Aladdin smiled as he danced through the crowd. The DJ moved into “Personality Crisis” by the New York Dolls and the kids all screamed at the beginning like David Johansen.

He reached Raggedy Jane and Little Dot’s little circle and joined them.
“Where have you been?” Raggedy Jane wailed. “We’ve been just so severely traumatized without you!”
“I was talking to Gunk. He’s madly in love with Little Dot”.

Little Dot made a sour German face. “Nein to nerds! Nein to nerds! Ich nicht lieben du nerds!”
“Oh, she really thinks she’s Dietrich tonight!”
“That’s okay, he made a correctly spelled Slade button tonight”, Aladdin announced.
“SIE! SCHEISS DAS NERDEN!”

As Aladdin danced he scanned the room to see if he recognized his other friends, what few he had. Every once in a while he’s catch some old guy, old enough to be his father scamming up to some girl his age. It made him angry, and some even closely resembled his father in a weird way. It never was the same after his mother died three years ago.

Dancing to silly songs like Tiger Feet and My Coo-Ca-Choo was a narcotic that numbed him from the tragedy of losing his forty-year old mother to cancer. The loud colors of his clothes and the explosive music served as a benign shellshock from the grief he really felt. It didn’t hurt that he befriended his rich female classmates who accepted him like a brother, so he accepted as many female friends as he could.

With the surrogate brother role he was handed he kept his drinking at home while his surrogate sisters got as drunk and stoned as they wished. His dad had good taste in liquor so it didn’t bother him to stay sober. Besides, Hollywood cops scared him. They always seemed desperate to prove that they were tougher than the rest of the Los Angeles police force.

Cops hated the glam clubs and would occasionally raid the place with a few firemen to create the justification that attendance was unsafe, when in fact the occupancy level was not over exceeded at all. When the police and fire chiefs made their big production it always culminated at the cash register by the bar with the register ringing and some money would flash in and out of unknown hands.

Little Dot and Raggedy Jane lustfully posed with Virginia Slims hanging off their lipstick lips and air kissed to Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plain” and stopped everything to scream out, “BABY JANE’S IN ACAPULCO WE ARE FLYING DOWN TO RIO!!!”
Smoke drifted out their skulls when they screamed.

****************

After the club closed they went down to the coffee shop down the block with the other kids. It was always a good idea for all the kids to go the same coffee shop to prevent the lowriders from picking on them. The car club kids always came in to Hollywood from their neighborhood to mess with the glam set.

The waitresses hated all the glam kids and always took their time handing out menus and taking their orders, their way of letting them now they weren’t welcome.

Jane, Dot and Aladdin took a table of their own.
“Oh look”, Jane frowned at the waitress. “We’re getting our menus fifty years later”. The waitress practically threw the garishly colored oversize plastic menus at them.

Little Dot spun every page of the menu like a speed freak. “Trash, trash, trash, trash, trashtrashtrash and more trash. Yuck!”
Aladdin smiled. “Why don’t you say it in German, Miss Dietrich?”
“It’s past midnight, sweetie I’m doing Carole Lombard now. Marlene was SO last night!”

Raggedy Jane stared at the menu with intensity. “Thousand Island or Ranch? The night has a thousand eyes!”
Little Dot lit up another Virginia Slim. “Miss Dot will have an iced tea and your salad crackers, dahlink”.
Raggedy Jane looked at Lad. “What’ll it be?”

“Grilled cheese sandwich with French fries”, Aladdin said.
Little Dot cackled. “That’s drunk food! You’re not even loaded!”
“I didn’t have dinner tonight. I’m pretty hungry”.

They waited another fifteen minutes for the waitress to make a cameo appearance. The other kids were getting pretty impatient with their service, too.

“Jesus, my stepdad comes around more often than this fucking waitress does”, Raggedy Jane grumbled. “Oh, here she comes”.

Their taciturn waitress took their order but didn’t bother to take their menus from them. The three teenagers simply took the menus and threw them into the booth next to them. The coffee shop hostess glared at them from across the lounge.

“Now, check your food before you eat it”, Jane advised her friends. “Someone may leave a special souvenir in there just to show you how pleased they are to serve us”.
“You betcha”, Little Dot puffed away.

CUT THAT’S A WRAP

EPILOGUE: The waitress took so long with their order that Little Dot got bored and sat on top of their table and sang "Falling In Love Again" looking bored and smoking languidly until the coffee shop hostess charged their booth and threw our friends out. They ended up going through a Jack In The Box, and that's the way it was.

Friday, June 5, 2020

RED COFFEE Suspense Novel OUT NOW!

Red Coffee is my latest novel, and it's about young model Lois Angelus, grabbing any modeling job she can, whether it's posing for sculptors, posing for high-end department stores, or even providing eye candy for a tenth-rate slapstick comedy short feature. Everything seems to be moving steadily for Lois until she’s witness to a murder of a prominent banker. That's when her troubles begin, and they never slow down in this hard-boiled horror tale.

It's the story of a woman caught in the crossfire of a class war in Thirties Los Angeles. My novel blends elements of urban horror and roman noir with a feminine viewpoint through it all. I originally serialized this novel on my blog about ten years ago, and now it can be enjoyed as a standalone novel.

The prototype for Lois is based on my favorite actresses of the post-silent and pre-code era like Ann Dvorak, Aline McMahon, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Leila Hyams, to name just a few. The way they combined feminine grace with a tough inner core inspired me to create a character in tribute to them.

I put this project on delay for all these years because it was such a radical departure from anything else I've written I didn't really know what to do with it, but now I feel confident enough to release it on its own merits.

Red Coffee is a hard-boiled amalgam of the pre-code cinema of William Wellman and the moody horror films of Val Lewton, creator of Cat People and The Seventh Victim. Prepare to enter a world of deadly scarecrows, murderous folksingers, academics tripping on LSD, slanderous séances, white supremacist terrorists, and birds, birds, birds!

Red Coffee is available as an eBook for only $3.99, and can be purchased through these eTailers:

Amazon Kindle: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B0892PPSSC&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_ooPZEbD3QRBJT

iTunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/red-coffee/id1514799647

Barnes & Noble Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/red-coffee-andy-seven/1137067297;jsessionid=E86FAA41AB4A3B7B80B38689E1390E9D.prodny_store01-atgap09?ean=9781098315139&st=AFF&2sid=Goodreads,%20Inc_2227948_NA&sourceId=AFFGoodreads,%20Inc

Kobo (Canada): https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/red-coffee

My new novel can probably be found at other sites besides the ones mentioned above, so check it our wherever it is. I hope you enjoy it, and as usual, I guarantee outrage on every page!

Friday, May 8, 2020

The Andy Seven 2020 Halftime Progress Report

There have been no idle hands at work during the pandemic, and I daresay this may be one of the most fertile periods of creativity I’ve ever had. I have a lot of new things to report, so much stuff I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s take it from the top:

1.

I put up an Author Page on Book Baby’s website for your review. It has links to all of my current books on sale, and also includes news about any upcoming releases. Here’s the link with a small screen capture, too:
https://store.bookbaby.com/bookshop/profile/index.aspx?profileURL=andyseven

2.

Check out a great poem I wrote called “Succubus” for Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly, Spring 2020 Edition. It’s a sexy horror poem influenced by the films of Jean Rollin/Jess Franco. You can download a copy of it and read it here:
https://horrorsleazetrashcom.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/hstq-spring-2020_ebook-1.pdf

3.

All of my novels are now available for library-style lending from Hoopla.com. All you need is a library card and it’s absolutely free. Hoopla also has hundreds of CDs and DVDs you can take out, too. Here’s the link for Hoopla.com:
https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?page=1&q=andy+seven&scope=EBOOK&type=direct

4.

On a non-literary note I’ve posted a few obscure Trash Can School tracks and Cockfight remixes on my Soundcloud page, and once again, it’s absolutely free! If you have a Soundcloud account, please add Andy Seven Ltd. as a favorite artist. Here’s the link:
https://soundcloud.com/andysevenltd

5.

And last, but certainly not least, I have a new novel on the pipeline titled Red Coffee, due for an early June release date. My first book in four flaming years! If the title sounds familiar it’s because it was serialized in this blog many years ago and will finally see the light of day as a full-fledged work. Here’s a sneak peek at the cover:

In closing I wanted to mention that all excerpts and chapters from my novels have been taken down from this blog and will no longer be available for reading. If you want to enjoy them from this point on, you can either take the entire book out on Hoopla.com, or better yet, buy the whole thing on Amazon Kindle, iTunes, Book Baby, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo in Canada, or Oyster (if they’re still in business).

I have some new projects planned for later this year, i.e. another book in October 2020, more poetry in a wonderful comp titled Will To Flutter, and my first new music in years for sale on Bandcamp. The future looks bright, virus be damned.

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Year Of The Bat

I’m watching The Last Man On Earth starring Vincent Price about the sole survivor of a virus that wipes out the entire planet. He lives alone in a boarded-up house and goes through his daily routine of buying supplies, eating alone and setting up fresh cloves of garlic to fend off gangs of zombies outside. In one scene he loses his composure, fed up with the futile redundancy of it all and screams, breaking things out of frustration. “That’s how I felt today”, I whispered to myself.

When I first heard of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) the news bulletin was accompanied by a photograph of a Chinese woman eating a full-bodied vampire bat, wings and all, in a ramen bowl. At first people waved it off as just another exotic disease, yet it spread like wildfire.

My job has been deemed “essential” by my company, a global intelligence organization, so I have been mandated to report to the office every day. I’ve also been mandated to wear a mask while walking down the hallway, however upper management doesn’t share this concern and continue to walk around without masks.

The building is like a ghost town. Many of my co-workers were granted Work From Home privileges but I have not. In order to cut costs the coffee makers, vending machines, refrigerators and microwaves have been turned off.

Driving home from work has been a bizarre experience: people jogging down the street, unmasked and reeking of sweat – body fluids is the chief conductor of the pandemic. Others are happily bicycling down the road.

One night at the market I saw a girl with her dog on a leash in the produce section. The dog tugged on the leash towards a stand of apples and licked the produce.

The first two weeks of the pandemic were the worst. It began at the onset of spring and my sinuses went berserk from hay fever, limiting my ability to breathe properly and making me wonder if COVID-19 was on the attack. This results in many nights of staying up with paranoid anxiety attacks, finally passing out eventually at 2 AM from sheer stress.

It’s my mother’s birthday so I visited her grave at the cemetery. The cemetery is high atop a hill by Warner Brothers Studios on Forest Lawn Drive. The sky is uncommonly blue, bright blue in fact, due to the decrease in cars racing around and polluting the atmosphere. In fact, I don’t think I can remember the sky ever looking so deep blue like this before. It’s lovely.

Everyone’s on the internet with their theories and amateur remedies about the pandemic, some of which contradict each other, establishing endless waves of confusion. I decide to stop reading what these experts have to say. It only creates more stress.

The only remark on the internet I agree with is when someone said CORONAVIRUS is an anagram for CARNIVOROUS. Exactly. Maybe if people stopped eating so much meat this shitstorm wouldn't be happening.

I’m at the Laundromat and have stationed myself in a far corner towards the back, away from everyone else. Nobody cares about the pandemic; the manager walks around sweating through his tee, no gloves or mask worn. All the more reason I’m glad I have them on, however people keep hovering around me and my area in spite of the fact that their wash is on the other side of the room. What gives?

Wipe everything down, wipe everything down with disinfectant. Do it again. And again. Wash your hands. Count to twenty. Slowly. Repeat. Repeat again. Don’t touch your face. I touch my face, anyway. I simply wash my fucking face. Slowly.

I have decided to order my groceries online because people at the market are manically shopping, jumping in front of you to beat you at grabbing something in spite of the fact that there are fifty more blocks of cheese on the shelf, etc. Shopping has become this frenetic experience, even though there’s more than ample supply of everything, except toilet paper.

The network news shows the virus dead in body bags getting loaded onto a truck because there’s no more room at the morgue. Some may get a proper burial, but many will simply be burned to prevent the spread of the disease.

I finally get permission to Work From Home for one day. In the middle of the day my employment agency calls and tells me that next Friday will be my last day at work. I have been at the organization for over a year and they’re letting me go. Actually, they’re unplugging me, just like the microwave, the refrigerators, and the vending machines.

My time is currently spent writing and editing in the solitude of my home. I look out my living room window and the hordes are still jogging, bicycling, motorcycling like it’s a bank holiday and the pandemic fatalities keep going up.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Two For The Road

TURNPIKE SHOOTER

Drink your cowboy coffee hot and black

Bobby Bare on the jukebox I Want To Go Home

Greasy grits sausages blonde toast with hard cube butter

Chester Lester hammered his breakfast like an Atlantic City seagull

Crewcut baby face like Buddy Lee

50% Elvis 50% Supply Sergeant

RocknrollBrando CompanyDCommando

Finished his food and threw it up in the parking lot

Drove on over to the turnpike with its pretty elms pines brush scrub

Pulled out a duffel bag full of ammo

Sniper time it’s the prime time

Chester Lester prime time

Climbed up an elm and took combat position

Priest in a car caught a bullet in the face

Too many beatings in school nuns need guns guns that kill

The sedan skid ‘n swerved ‘n spun and woundaroundandaround

And rolled down an embankment

Chester Lester took a tight swig from his half-pint

Clear fluid flames electrifying him

Beehive mama driving by in a battered VeeDubBug uh BeBopDeBop

Chester took aim thinking of the big beat beat-up beatings he took

Opened fire again

The past passed by and then passed on

Slowly drifting to a grinding halt against the gray cloudy sky

The graygraygrave tombstone sky

Khaki jeep slowed down to check out the stationary sled

The crewcut killer opened fire

Open fire flame on

The jeep pulled over two soldiers took cover

Pulled out their irons and shot at the direction the bullets flew

Highway Patrol car zoomed by and pulled over

Chester Lester blew bullets their way

Death bird in the trees

Death bird tearing up leaves

Rain of bullets from the black & white

Rain of bullets from the iron green sled

Hail stones chipped off bone from Lester’s plaster skull

Then came torrents of tragedy red plasma

Watering the grass with his death

Rolled out of tree

And the birds flew away

Looking for somewhere else to sing

*********

SIERRA SUE THE LOT LIZARD

Times are tough

A girl’s gotta eat

Some of the fellas like it rough

In the cabin seat

Dead trucker found in the shower stall at the I-95 rest stop

A few chicken bones from KFC left around

Sierra Sue faking the voodoo

Planted evergreens swayed in the freeway wind oh so bored

Stench of chicken fried steak in the air

Big doll eyes Big blonde hair

Blonde medusa snakes slithering roundandroundandround

Sierra Sue

Then there was Big Grizzly with his arms cuffed behind him

Knife marks tattooed in swirls all around him

Leather seat coated in blood

Money belts all stripped

She was a lot lizard slithered around

From rest stop to rest stop

All you saw was her dark shadow

Rotten and forgotten

Quick rubbers in the vending machine

Locked and loaded for a good time in the lot

A million ways to die

A hundred ways to kill

Truck stop mama

Praying mantis of the turnpike

Phantom tollbooth

She had her knife all ready

Ladyfingers gripping icy cold steel

Pepper spray garrot wire handcuffs more killtools than cosmetics in her purse

Sierra Sue big tits big ass high heels big death

Friday, March 27, 2020

Friday, March 13, 2020

Patron Saint Of Sleep

1974. It’s a dark, moonless night in my house in Los Angeles. The time is 1:49 am and the silence of my sleep is broken by the sound of my father screaming in his bed. He sleeps in the living room alone. His wife/my mother died four years earlier.

My father slept without a mattress on his bed, a flat surface with blankets and a pillow. When I heard him scream I got up to wake him up.

He laid in bed with his eyes closed and screaming; this happens on occasion but not frequently. I shook him gently.

“Wake up, Dad, wake up, you’re having one of those dreams again”, I said quietly. He slowly stirred and his face relaxed a bit. His eyes opened quickly and focused on me.

“Oh…I dreamt about it again”, he said, exhaling to find some relief.
“Well, it’s over now. Do you want a glass of water?”
“No, but my back’s aching again. Walk on my back”.
“Well…okay, but just for a minute”.

My father spun around, lying on his stomach. I stepped up on the flat bed and got on his lower back, slowly and lightly walking all over his back, getting on the shoulder blades, padding to the sides of his spine, making sure not to step on the vertebral column but around it.

“Oh, that’s good, that’s good, move a little lower”.

I traveled across the topography of my father’s back, following the receding line of his back like some uncharted trail. I slowly treaded towards the sciatic region as he exhaled and quietly sighed. I was getting tired of tightrope walking my father’s back and wanted to get back to bed. “How is that? Feeling better?”

“Yeah, that’s good. Good night”. He rolled around and went back to his customary position.

I went back to bed and thought about the terrible dreams my father had. He was held prisoner in Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau during the Holocaust and lost his parents, brothers and countless more relatives in the concentration camps.

He saw small, frightened children herded at gunpoint into poisoned gas chambers.

He saw elderly women tearfully forced to dig their own graves before being shot to death.

My father remembers being lined up along with his fellow prisoners in front of Dr. Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death in Auschwitz, to be picked for torturous human experiments and was fortunate to be dismissed.

I’m named after my father’s brother, Andy, who was killed in the death camps when he was only 13 years old, and the peculiar thing is when I turned 13 my mother died. George Bernard Shaw should’ve said that death, not youth is wasted on the young.

I wondered how many times his back had been beaten by the Nazis. How much physical abuse did he suffer from them? Memories like that never leave, and even if you choose to ignore them they’ll always return in your dreams.

With my mother dead and his family gone all he had left were his sons and empty nights devoid of dreams. Money is nothing; dreams are everything.

******************

The year is 1996 and I’m living with my wife in a one-bedroom two-bathroom apartment in the Miracle Mile District of Los Angeles. We survived West Coast earthquakes, make fashions and occasionally play in a band together. We’re always busy in an interior-sort of way.

Our next-door neighbor is Bob, a 79-year old shut-in with thick eyeglasses, a long white beard and a baller cap from Hollywood Park. He loves the racehorses and gets newsletters from the racetrack about upcoming events. He is so rail thin a strong breeze could probably knock him over.

Bob’s very friendly as shut-ins go, however. Once he offered to pick up my wife’s amplifier, which houses two 15-inch speakers, and carry it for her. It must have weighed three times as much as he did, if not more.

If we ever walked by his apartment and he was on his way out the door there would be a struggle getting out, because Bob’s place was so packed with newspapers, bags of untossed trash and boxes and boxes of random possessions. Although no one ever entered his flat, it was said that the place was basically a junkyard that he watched television and slept in.

When the landlady was asked why she didn’t evict him, she said she was told when she bought the building that the proviso in the purchase was that Bob came with the place and couldn’t be kicked out. Since he never complained about anything or bothered anyone it wasn’t a point of contention.

One night at around 3:30 am we woke to the sound of someone yelling. It was hard to understand what he was yelling about, but it was something repetitive and yelled with regularity; something like “NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN!”

I jumped out of bed to see what the fuss was about. Bob was yelling halfway out his door into the hallway. He was in the throes of a nightmare but wanted to get out of his apartment. I looked at him and his eyes were glassy, not focusing on anything but looking straight ahead as he yelled, “NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN!” over and over.

”Bob! Bob!” I said quietly. “Wake up, Bob! It’s okay. Everything’s alright. I’m here”.
His voice faded slowly into a whimper after I repeated myself until he snapped out of it and focused himself at me. “Oh”, he mumbled in a small voice.
“It’s okay, you had a bad dream”, I said slowly. “You can calm down now. You’re awake now”.
“Oh”, he sharpened his vision at me. “Okay…goodnight”.

I wondered later on if he had a bad dream or had a foreboding of what was to come, because six months later he died when his television set fell on him while he slept and crushed his chest. Apparently his TV sat on a cardboard box right next to him as he slept.

Since he lived alone no one knew he had died and we didn’t realize something was awry when we stopped running into him. And then, of course, the smells wafted through the vents…the smell of death. After a week of the smell we called the Fire Department and he was definitely gone.

After Bob’s death the apartment was cleaned out and we rented the space as a workroom/studio to create fashions. Whenever I was alone in there at night I could feel Bob’s presence and never felt like a haunting. After all, I fought off his nightmares for him.

************

2018. After renting Bob’s apartment as a workroom for 15 years my wife unraveled and left me. I’m now abandoned and alone. I work seven days a week, two different jobs: clerical work on weekdays and delivery work on weekends. I come home late from work and I wake up early the next day.

The money isn’t great, but I earn enough to keep my apartment without suffering the anxiety of a roommate. Unfortunately, anxiety exists in many forms. I live above a pretentious dress shop run by two aging neurotic gay men who constantly scream at each other. They’re old and bitter because they sell granny formals on a youth-oriented shopping street and nobody cares.

One of them is an egotistical Israeli who drives around in an oversized pickup truck and charms elderly women into buying his creations, while the other constantly walks around a whippet who empaths their neuroses and barks constantly.

They’re not a terribly bright couple, so it took them a year and a half to realize she was gone and I lived solo above them. After finding this out they decided to render my ability to get a good night’s sleep impossible. (They liked her but always hated me).

Their workroom is right below my bedroom and they began to work all night with the music turned all the way up. Wired on cocaine to keep themselves awake, they play a non-stop torrent of loud music from 10 pm until 6 am while they work. Manhattan Transfer. Anita Baker. Show tunes. Beyonce. Salsa. Lady Gaga. Sleeping has become non-existent for me.

The music is so loud it fills up all the sound my bedroom. I can’t hear anything from my television because their sound has dominated everything in my room. All I can hear is their horrible music and nothing else.

I called the landlady about it and she rolled her eyes and said, “Call them up and talk to them about it. I’m SURE you’ll work something out with them”.

I called the police five times in one night because they kept promising to send a car over. Nobody came. The police didn’t give a damn. Nobody did.

This never happened when my wife was with me, this was a new attack and they basically had everyone’s blessing. My neighbors didn’t care. I was alone in every sense of the word. Working became difficult; I had trouble staying awake. I suffered from sleep deprivation.

Night after night this endless assault of loud music kept my walls shaking and my floor vibrating with their shitty music. Nobody cared and I had no one to talk to about it. This went on for about a year, and then something interesting happened.

The pilot light in my heater went out. I called the gas company and the gas tech came by and told me that I couldn’t turn the heater on anymore because it was emitting too much carbon monoxide. It had to be replaced. A heater repair man came by a week later and installed a new unit. The heater works even better than before, but with one twist.

My new heater thinks it’s a radiator. It makes banging and kicking noises all night, so while the granny dress couple play their music they hear and endless stream of banging sounds all night. It freaks them out so much they turn their music down and sometimes even turn it off completely.

It doesn’t end there, though. They also hate it when I play cartoon shows on my Bluray player all night, so I put on Rocky & Bullwinkle, Beany and Cecil, Bugs Bunny. Endless screaming, goofy voices, wacky sound effects, Dixieland music with blaring horns, endless cacophony, etc. It makes them mental – sometimes they even bang on my floor to get me to stop. Nothing doing.

They hate free jazz, my favorite kind of music. Archie Shepp. The Art Ensemble of Chicago. Ornette Coleman. Blue Note Records, especially with Elvin Jones pounding the crap out of his skins. I love it, they hate it. It makes their coke ears bleed. They bang on the walls and I sleep through it.

So now I get my eight hours sleep, and yes, I quit the weekend delivery job so I sleep in on Saturday and Sunday mornings. But, alas. The damage is done.

Occasionally the dress couple don’t come in at night and I still turn on the TV and blast it all night. The thought of sleeping in a silent apartment is unthinkable. I need to sleep in my own noise with the television on all night.

There are nights when they don’t even play music anymore, but I don’t care. The TV goes on anyway and it will be loud and stay that way until I get up at 5:30 am. I have become Bob, I am Bob. I’m the crazy old man of the building now and I will listen to my set all night, because it’s the lullaby no one will sing to me.