FOREVER YOUNG!

Guys in their 60's are driving around in muscle cars right now, playing Surfer Girl on their six-speaker CD players. The dial is turned up to full blast, man! It's 'cause the dude doesn't wear his hearing aids...It just doesn't look cool to be wearing those old hearing aids. Hey man!!!...This dude has his shit together! Can you imagine what his 60-year-old surfer girl would look like in a thong? Arrgh! The picture wouldn't be pretty. I can visualize the dried, saggy, cellulite-laden skin, and those icky, varicose veins. But hey!...60 is the new 40, don't you know?
Some of the wonders available to my fellow Baby Boomers in this miraculous day and age are: face lifts, liposuction, derm abrasions, lap band surgeries, rhinoplasties, breast implants, penile implants, Viagra, Cialis, pheremones, tanning booths, deep tissue massage, (with or withou full release), pedicures, manicures, health clubs, diet programs, ad infinitum.......
Somehow, when I see a 70 year old woman in a micro-mini skirt and five- inch stilletto heels, if just doesn't work for me! I am frightened that this "dear one", might fall, and suffer a hematoma with every shaky step she takes. Yeah, we sure don't like aging gracefully in America. I knew I was getting old when I chose to fart in the gym, and not care who was around to hear or smell the noxious gases leaving my colon. This is one of the simple joys of old age! We are solid in our maturity, and care less what others might think of us. This action puts an exclamation point on pure, personal freedom.
I don't even want a big Harley anymore. I'm afraid my battered legs won't support the weight of the big machine. I am sure my reaction time would cause me to wipe out, and splatter my elderly body on some highway, like road kill. A little Vespa motor scooter seems a more logical choice to me. They get better mileage than the big old hogs anyway. I realized this year, that no matter how much time I spend in the gym, pumping iron, and running on the treadmill, that when I lift my arms up and hold them out, my old man skin is going to hang off of them like chicken fat. This is a major bummer for me. I can't afford plastic surgery. Oh well, I just won't hold my arms out like that in front of any chicks! I'll keep them tucked in and flexed! Also, I'll walk around with my stomach sucked in, and my chest puffed out. Hey! I'm still a babe magnet after living on this earth for 61 years man!
After I strut my stuff in the gym, I go home, check my emails, shower, and eat a killer lunch. Usually I fall asleep in my lazy-boy chair around three in the afternoon. My nicotine gum is still in my mouth, and chokes me sometimes. I'm supposed to pick up my wife from work at the college at five-o'-clock. I freak out when she calls, asking me where the hell I am! Thank God that the college she works at is only 2 blocks from the house. I say, "Five minutes honey, I fell asleep again". I hear her laughing in the background, as I hang up the phone. Now that I've slept the afternoon away, I'll be up all night watching television. Maybe if I bought that red, V-8 Mustang, convertible muscle car, I wouldn't nap so much! Vroooom! Vroooom!

from: "A Spider in the Corner of My Mind"...available on Amazon.com

ACCEPT THEM ALL

republicans, democrats, marxists, independants, zen buddhists, flutists, flautists, nudists...accept them all.
tip your hat to the bums, the nuns, the scumbags, the old hags, and drop a quarter in the cup of the schmuck who begs in Uptown, in front of "Big Chicks" gay bar.
he needs a pint of muscatel, and a warm room in the hell of the YMCA.

put your arms around porn queens, and magazines that your mother never let you read.
listen to the insane, the lame, the urbane, the tame, the maimed, the wild, the child, the mild and get your fix with the licks of hot jazz, pizazz!
don't razz other cats for their ideas.
grasp it all, don't fall, hear it all.
intellectuals, transexuals, ineffectuals:
"I saw the best minds of my generation go mad reading Ginsberg".
now they rap, scrap and nap...redact on uninspirational activities.
gameboy, ipad, so sad...and stock car races...i embrace them all.
suck in their humanity, for you need to see the virtual playing field.
this game is called life.
have the vision to accept them all.
prostitutes, pimps, players and chimps,
rednecks, jews, homosexuals, may snooze while i pen this,
but i love 'em all, just the same.
get over it. get over yourself. be top shelf. have fun with it all.
be brave and stand tall...
do what you do.
it will only help you, if you don't make fun of the fool and the clown.
have pity on Rush and Glenn Beck's vituperative pus.
don't let Pat Robertson bother you, 'cause we're all in life's stew.
politicians, popes, lawyers, and dopes...
bankers, corporates, rich and poor, need enlightenment...
of this i am sure.
accept the bizarre...
left handed guitars, dingy assed bars, and accept yourself.
there is no greater power in the world than to rationally observe life's insanities and not to be reactionary.
with a clear head, the job begins...
take action
begin with yourself
make a list of what is wrong
then fix it.
only then can you be a part of the "great healing".
yet, strangely, you must distance yourself from IT.
in your imperfection, your dissension, your suspension in this cosmos that you have designed...with your intellectual mind...
the light finally comes.
then it goes.
darkness comes to us all.
it will come to you.
i promise.
so, accept it all.
accept them all.
so you can accept yourself.

MARY

She was a beauty in her day.
I've known her for thirty years.
She was well into her 50's when I met her.
My wife and I were 30, moving into our new home.
She and her daughter were to be our new next door neighbors.
Mary had a flair for elegance, wit, and fashion.
She always gave my wife home made cookies, or spaghetti sauce for me.
She knew I loved these gifts.
I was there for her when she needed repairs on garbage disposals or hot water heaters. Sometimes, bad light switches, or heavy boxes were in my routine.
She needed my help, because she was a widow.
Now, she is in her late 80's.
She doesn't go out anymore.
I rarely see her, or bother to visit.
A home health aide nurse is by her side during the day.
Her daughter has a day time job. She never married.
I received a phone call today.
Mary had fallen, and instructed her nurse to call me.
When I opened the door, Mary smiled at me from the floor of her kitchen.
The walker stood without her.
Mary looked like an impish, dark haired, raggedy-ann doll.
Mary's dark wig was askew.
We both laughed at the situation.
As small and frail as she was, I had a hard time getting her in her chair.
I'm getting older now too, I guess.
I didn't want to hurt her.
I remember how the EMT's hurt my mom, when they picked her up off a gurney and flung her on her hospital bed.
I remember how angry I was. I gave them hell, and glad I did!
We finally got Mary in a sitting position, in one of her kitchen chairs.
I kissed her on the cheek, and told her to call me anytime.
She didn't say too much. I think she has difficulty speaking now.
She cracked her famous smile, and pointed to a corner on her kitchen countertop. There sat a plate of freshly baked, chocolate chip cookies.
I cried on the way back to my house, next door...
but I felt full of love.

MY HANDS

i look at them now...
they are soft.
like a woman's hands.
once they were calloused.
like my soul, once was...
the scars are still there.
age spots, yes...i get more every year.
i have wounds from pulling cable...
for big earth movers.
i have burns from oxy-acetylene torches.
i had a man's life you know.
no pencil-neck job for me.
i had a worker's life.
blue collar.
my skin isn't soft or supple now.
it's crepe paper.
the star tattoo remains...
in the web of my right hand.
an icon of "manhood"...
silly now.
I look at my hands...
and see them folded on my chest.
in my coffin.
i hope they don't hold a rosary.
i hope they stick a pen between my cold fingers.
i look at my hands.
dry in the winter...
they crack
the wounds hurt
heal slowly
my hands are cold.
bad circulation
still they are useful, my hands.
to pet cats and dogs...
hold babies
stroke my wife's cheek,
or my daughter's golden hair.
I look at my hands, and wonder:
How will they look next year?

THE BLUE FOX LOUNGE...from "The Journey"...Memoirs of a South Side Chicago kind of guy...available on amazon.com

My roommate, Chicago Johnny, and I got along just fine. John owned a boss reel-to reel sound system, and sat in his lounge chair, smoking reefer or cigarettes. When he was stoned, listening to his music, he smiled like a Chesire cat. He was usually rocking to his tunes on Friday nights when I came home from work. He always had a bottle of Vicks Nasal Spray, which he constantly overused, and abused. I'm amazed he never acquired a deviated septum from the many times he squeezed that damned solution into his nasal cavities.
Johnny owned the best collection of blues music I had ever heard in my life. He was a simple man with modest aspirations. He knew what he wanted out of life and was willing to settle for less. He was calm, happy, and likable. I felt he was an excellent choice for a friend and roommate. John chose to be an individualist and aspire to nothing. I smile when I toss this fact about him, around in my "brain box". Another reason why we got along so famously was because his pizza shift ran from five p.m. until one-in-the-morning. Our paths rarely crossed, and that makes for a great relationship between men who share the same residence.
Most every Friday night on the weekends, Johnny, Viet-Nam Bill, and I met up at "The Blue Fox Lounge". This establishment was located on 55th street, a couple of blocks west of Kedzie Avenue on Chicago's south side. The Blue Fox was a late night joint. It had some of the finest "Do-Wop" music on the juke box I had ever heard in my life. The lounge was dark and gothic. The bar was so long that it went on forever. The bar had red candles placed intermittently that flicked like seductive fingers, inviting me to sit on the garish red barstools. The owners had a five a.m. license, so most of the clientele started arriving around midnight. The women who came in the bar wore too much eye makeup and bizarre shades of lipstick and nail polish. Most of them wore short skirts with black nylons and high heels. The girls all had ratted hair, or falls. Some had beehive hair-do's for their "crowning glories".
These gals were a little on the trashy side, to say the very least. They clustered together like a bunch of hens, clucking a mile-a-minute. Their dark eyes were always darting this way and that. They looked around the bar furtively, almost desperately, sizing up everything. They appeared to be on some kind of do-or-die mission. These girls were a throwback to the late 50's. We just loved them!
The men who came in the bar wore gaudy banlon shirts, black leather jackets, sharkskin pants, and pointy black boots with zippers on the sides. Most of the guys looked like aging crooners, with greasy ducktails and pompadours. The general mood of the bar was one of danger and anticipation. Most of the music was soul-type stuff. All of it was sexually charged. A lot of dark lighting and slow dance songs made this bar "tops" with me. All that went on in the place was really sensual. Eye candy and auditory sexiness prevailed in this bar. I listened to Roy Orbison, Little Anthony and The Imperials, Curtis Mayfield, Santo and Johhny, The Platters, Sam and Dave, and Jerry Butler. They were all on the jukebox. This place was a real blast-from-the-past. I loved it, because it was so unique.
Bill and I were always half hammered by the time Johhny would arrive. The three of us drank and laughed and told tales while we checked out all the girls. When the time was right, we made our moves on them. If a "dolly" was stumbling around and smiling at you, or inadvertently put her breasts on the bar while ordering her whiskey, you knew the time was right to approach her.
These inebriated angels danced so closely to you, that thoughts of pre-pubescent basement parties always came to my mind. I thought of those little parties where I explored the wonderful intimacies of dry humping my dance partner and doing taboo things not to be seen in public. I felt the danger of being 14 once again!
For some odd reason, Viet-Nam Bill always got lucky in this place. Maybe it was the sad look in his eyes. Maybe his luck was due to his war experiences, or not quite measuring up to the expectations of his anal-retentive, succesful, sales executive father. Maybe a combination of these things put him in the drivers seat with these needy women.
Sometimes, I got lucky in there as well. It was always hit-or-miss with me. Porr Johnny could'nt get lucky in a whorehouse, with a fistfull of hundred-dollar bills. Maybe he smelled too much like pizza or Vick's nasal inhaler. circa (1973)

63RD STREET BARS, SOUTHSIDE CHICAGO, 1972

63rd street had bars...and alot of them.
The "Gaslight lounge" is where my brothers friend, Bob English...
ogled my date, Kathy. She was a flirting kind of girl.
Bob was 13 years my senior...A pathetic drunk.
But a nice guy...He bought us drinks.
Kathy knew how to work him.
Bob was built pretty good, but he had a bad case of acne.
He was a lonely sort of guy.
I liked him anyway.
He died of lung cancer when I was 28 years old.
I went to his wake, probably to pick up girls.
Lord only knows, where Kathy ended up.
I drank with my dad at Tommy Kraw's lounge, on Kedzie avenue.
Kraw's was a late night joint, where a guy in his 20's could pick up older women for sex. It was a great buffet table of older bimbos...just there for the picking.
Little Joe's Pizza place had its Italian singer Aldo, singing "George Washington Bridge"...We were drunk and stoned on grass...It was hilarious.
He sang in broken English...Our dates loved him.
Me and the boys had fake I.D.s after high school.
I was an alcoholic by the time I hit 20.
I had the time of my life.
Back then, we didn't have alcoholics.
They were called bums...they layed in the gutter.
If you worked, you were AOK.
The slum of my life was good.
The women, the drinks, and the cacophonous laughter.
It all goes by now, in my head, like a blur.
It's all too fast...too dangerous.
It is too fleeting...I woke up old.
One bar after another.
One cigarette after another.
All too fast.
63rd Street.
It's still there, but like a tomb.
It's a dirty slum...
Where other young men, live their dreams.
Someday perchance to ponder...
63rd street bars...faded youth...fast women...fast cars...
good times.
They will be just like me.
Ah, the memories.
63rd street bars.

IT'S NOT MY FAULT

its not my fault for hiroshima
its not my fault for six-million jews...
murdered in nazi germany
its not my fault for hooded, red-necked
racists, lynching black people
its not my fault for the genocide...
perpetrated upon native american indians

its not my fault that i divorced my first wife
its not my fault i quit numerous jobs
its not my fault i poured free drinks
its not my fault i took advantage of women

its not my fault that i didnt:
quit smoking cigarettes
service my car
wash the windows
do the dishes
return the stolen money
go to church every sunday

its not my fault that god is dead
its not my fault the world is insane
its not my fault you dont like this poem
i don't care
its not my fault.