Friday, October 04, 2013

Notes on track

Discrete forms doodled on the margins in convoluted geometry oddly become interlaced overlapping pop cultural tessellations. Not quite fooling the eye but visually comforting in its lazier simplifications which function then to duplicate childhood Hot Wheels plastic tongue-and-groove track that in thirty inch length strips made for utile makeshift pirate scarabs.

The frontality of the overhead view recalls the scale shift expected when telescoping to a larger picture plane and what was orange is now gray, calligraphic in its linearity that harkens Franz Kline except predictably finite and closed rather than openly composed begging something structurally flat rather than patterned image.

Yet so many combinations from a limited supply of prefabricated materials to affect design options so that a lone figure eight lays down ad infinitum.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

DAMN BBQ! You Scary!

(from howispentmyperdiem.com)

In the country of Texas as is required, the two Jasons and his Lar embark upon our mission from God in search of barbequed swine… because not doing so would automatically revoke our American citizenship which applies even for a resident Canuck like Dunda. Luckily and per the father of Pun Intended alumna Ali Landers, said three amigos via Skobbler arrived in the parking lot just inside downtown Houston at Luling City Market in anticipation, in hunger, and suffice to say, in love.

Like the many convicts incarcerated in the Lone Star State awaiting their conjugal visit, it was truly love at first sight soon to be consummated. And why not as the picture (bride) below of our sauced and saucy dreams prove.

Outside this dude ranch straight out of City Slickers (or at least, a suburbanized version of Giant with Jimmy the Dean and Rock the Hudson), the waft of smoked meatage in the hot eighty degree air bitch‐slapped us like a leopard chasing down a marmoset and ripping into its flesh making you say, “If that thing came by my house, I’d kill it!” kind of good.

Inside among the good ole boys and preppy business folk out to satiate their meatlust is, quite simply put, hog (and beef brisket and chicken) heaven behind a greasy windowed lunch counter. Glorious slabs, pulchritudinous chunks, glistening carcasses lay out luxuriously as if a “rat‐lookin’ thing all ate up”. We queue while espying the menu above our plastic‐shower‐capped‐under‐a‐baseball‐cap hosts selling the individual animal flesh strictly by the pound and agree on family style for maximum sampling. Dunda goes first and orders a pound of brisket which he supplements with a mini pecan pie for dessert. I follow with a whole succulent chicken. Jozwiak at first asks for a pound of ribs but when the server cuts off only five individual bones quickly doubles the amount.

Then finally we sat us down with our sweet iced tea and selected side of cole slaw on an indoor picnic table to properly apportion and chow down. Each of us divvied up our paper plate with three fall‐off‐the‐bone ribs, three slices or so of brisket and preferred section of white or dark meat bird slathered in a tangy orangy sauce so finger‐licking good that Jozwiak committed the rookie error of buying a bottle of— forgetting the 3‐1‐1 travel liquid rule.

That first collective bite sounded obscene, if not outright pornographic with the three of us cooing, moaning and groaning in orgiastic harmony. Every bite after, the same salacious tune. As Hawk Harrelson would have said, “MMMMMMMmmmmm, boy! Good eating! Some just as good, none better.” Or imagine Snuffles the Dog from the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon pointing to his mouth for a snack going “AH, ah, ah, ah, ah!”. And he would wolf it down and fly into the air going "MMMMM!, MMMMM!!, MMMMMMM!!!” while holding his fat tummy and then float down like a feather going “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” 


That described the three of us exactly.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Serving man

Bookend sentinel,
lost in space

you come hither
but in peace
offering soylent green

blue faced, rose-colored
spectacles wearing white
polyester bell bottoms stretched 
over long greenly laced legs

of interwoven veined spirographs, 
supernovae radiantly out-of-control

to eat me alive.

So an aperitif first,
ultramarine liquid, blurring faculty, 
cleansing palate, warping 
space/time continuum

before pursed lips blow a naked kiss 
concussive enough 
obliterating skin-tight spacesuit to 
bare skin

And for the main entree,
nawa shibari

arms bound, legs tied, mouth 
gagged, whole body 
suspended in anime

floating zero gravity
no one can hear you scream 
for ecstasy deafens
swirling into time tunnels, 
completely harnessed

And still I succumb.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Of the birds and the bees

Gravy spills while the beans on the grill begin to burn.

"Surely you joust," retorted the not-so-famous thirteenth century Greek philosopher when pressed for his secret ingredients during the ad hoc bra mitzvah under the Manhattan Bridge.

Yet wearing a codpiece outside your pants is so medieval, all in attendance concur. So why did the plastic chicken cross the country road? Any average-sized thumb could answer that simple riddle.

The bartender nods and points at the helicopter below the belt, rotor blades out of synch coughing. But an uninvited Tracy Emin already beats him to the sucker punch, unequal parts banana and two ripe melons with a dash of bitters on their rocks.

Just say no, just say no, both implore in stereo as the mixed-up conversation suddenly melts, causing him to suddenly sweat.

Who can tell for sure whether the bastard is suffering from total yellow fever though his wife did text for emergency evacuation.

The octopus in the room decides right then to rise and head to the bathroom. Coming to grips with tentacles is often much sexier than any fetish.

LHOOQ goes the pun.

Friday, June 21, 2013

(Another) Cut

Daddy, the amateur knife thrower, needs a new pair of shoes

and so blindfolded, rears back his left arm, taking aim at her stripped body rotating crazily between seven to eight revolutions per minute on the life-sized roulette wheel in concert for the contestant playing along at home on the phone.

Their prize if he pins the tail on the proverbial donkey on his first try will be that all time goes backwards wiping out everything she fought for until then, a desperate measure for a lost cause.

Behind him, a cloaked archer curiously in a judo outfit but holding a bow with arrow nevertheless and an eye-patched urban cowboy awkwardly twirling his vintage six-shooters exchange strategic notes, awaiting their turn.

Squinting under the lone spotlight shone directly on cue, she blinks a secret message that the teleprompter pauses and rewinds in slow motion.

It must be folly, probably of youth, to face her accusers so what was she thinking? And how did things get so out of hand?

No one, least of all her, now cares.

To agree so compliantly feels like surrender but what of promises made that now appear only to be bad hindsight.

Luck sometimes be a whore later.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Fashion by design

In the waning hours of haute couture, an empty nest cantilevered above a stony lintel begs for amnesty when she retreats, red-breasted just after night falls.

Shadows pretending to be silhouettes haggle market price in antebellum terms, but all for naught as no sale, not even for the trunkful passing by Joseph Cornell jettisoned and preserved through the looking-glass.

Barefoot, our contessa lays away the straight-laced boots on display, and her long polished fingernails without thinking reposes her floppy Napoleonic bonnet at a jauntier tilt so that the upswept brim, though black, smiles back widely, a harbinger of summertime.

Late June but her gait, ever so relaxed, stirs hope eternal. For Audrey Hepburn is jealous and the neighborhood hipsters lounge about the full blue moon. Robins are rich and their daddies often love sugared iced tea. Now hush, little shopkeeper, no need to bawl. Only a few more weeks before his flight back home.

So thank heavens that the bus stop headed home is only across the noisier-than-usual street, down a long city block.

Nevertheless the price to pay can be too vogue.


Monday, March 25, 2013

Redemption out of nowhere

It gnawed through the inner casing like strawberry flavored Twizzlers, exposing raw, hot wire.

Instinct said to let it go as nothing good ever comes from live electricity except an obvious painful jolt. So homilies aside, imagine the shock or lack thereof when the expected fireworks never materialized. Save for a last minute reminder as a courtesy out of curiosity or maybe in spite really to recoup a lost vestige of dignity did another chance resuscitate previously dashed hopes, a primaveral spud ready to spout.

Who could predict such a change of heart then to befall the sanctioned pomp and circumstance, to be cut off without reprieve, a persona non grata of your own free will.

"Silly rabbit, pink is for kids! 


Or at least dumb chinchillas clueless about how to color me beautiful...," yelled the giant leprechaun into the realm of the senses before disrobing to eat his annual bowl of sugary cereal. 

His warning went unheeded, though as a barely audible peep momentarily broke the imposed radio silence, forcing t
ime to move on possibly. But fools do dive in headfirst.

And again, once... twice... three times the sucker, a hard-candied outer shell easily and irresistibly crunched to reach the fractured soft caramel core. Thus the mortar-boarded and bespectacled owl who actually gave a hoot said to no one in particular.

Why not just continue to let the saliva melt down the reactor because even Joe Q. Public knows shopping cures all.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Notes from booze and bacon


A bad see-through pun loops while suspended in the corner on a black arm adjacent a few onlookers slowly peering at the commotion two so-called chefs pretend to stir up. No one can really hear what both are jabbering about since the porcine tributes hung in salon style on surrounding walls deflect and scatter their empty banter before it could gain any momentum.

Yesterday permitted to roam freely about, opens the front door to escape the hot air which ironically blasts in past the guarded porthole on a three-hour tour to rescue the seven passengers stranded on the kitchen isle. As usual, Elijah Craig is standing blindly by his former professor serving a homemade dandelion concoction the younger Gilligan winces at in distaste, proclaiming how "I hate huckleberries" though, four out of our beloved five millionaires believed contrary.

The only thing missing now, it seems, is pink sauce.

So to sweeten the boiling but not melting pot, our gracious host summons his ninja princess who descends commando, forsaking all modesty for a lighter airiness from the blueless clouds, an Amazonian decision apparently premeditated toward disenthrallment rather than fashion. The gauzy tunic she wears then billows like a seven year itch, an accidental parachute slowing her down enough to stick the three-point crash landing atop a broken concrete slab.

Those outside where cooler bodies prevail feel a glow beginning to glimmer from underneath her loosely fit robe, growing warmer then suddenly hot enough to spontaneously combust the thin fabric. She now stands nude but softly mouths a secret incantation that stirs an invisible fluttering enough to stiffen the crowd. Even so, it is hard for them not to stare lustfully.

Her tightly bound top knot becomes edited later, lost history scrubbed from public record.

Monday, March 04, 2013

Last Days of Pompeii

Another long day's journey into the night and the Northwest Dallas Forty Express, usually a long-winding, nonstop caravan, sat still, hemmed in by inchoate rush hour en route home from the cement pond while the traffic of her dizzying conversation sped along at one hundred twenty miles an hour, too fast for any highway patrol radar gun to clock, pull over and appropriately ticket.

Along the way, the weak chose seppuku rather than endure such protracted torture but not him, not our stone-faced Roman, for centurions never ever give in that easily.

Eyes forward behind mirrored sunglasses as his wont, Del Piombo's descendent seven times removed was trapped as well, himself engaged in a stereophonic debate with Ennio Morricone about which glittery fedora one ought to wear when in the company of cornhuskers as she rattled forth.

Kao Sifu should beat all of them there but not if he could help it, they knew, exhorting his lookalike below deck for full steam ahead.

Besides according to his brand new shiny watch, a bejeweled sundial of a family heirloom from his buddies Martini and Rossi, all signs pointed toward little Britain where grilled marsupial stuffed with roasted kangaroo testicles and crushed garlic awaited as apt reward for listening to her verbally demonstrate endless quick moves in combination to solve consecutive Rubrik's Cubes conjured in mid-air.

Nothing save an eight year old Hapkido white belt breaking his toe or a fever of stingrays or getting thrown under the Greyhound could break his concentration. Then faster than a rerun of Cannonball Run II, our mecca the Anatole appeared on the golden horizon. 

Later at the gossip bar, all found it hard to believe that just the week before, the three would-be amigos stood under a huge sign advertising a Gentlemen's Club with membership cards proudly displayed and actually passed the time discussing the finer points of toilet etiquette.

"Make sure to sit down when you take a piss..." 

Such was inscribed, lest we forgot, in the ladie's room above the urinal.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Notes because Shin Yu Pai said so

6) Mother recollecting how she and her friends interrupted their weekly mah jong game to investigate the ruckus stirred in the other room from their preschool to kindergarten children (about six of us) seriously whopping each other on the skull with old-fashioned glass Coke bottles but laughing hysterically enough for them to leave us alone...something to the effect of no harm, no foul.

47) Nothing but elbows and ass running away from Margate Park when a kid aptly nicknamed Beaver dove and slid across a huge pile of dogshit attempting a shoestring catch during a fast-pitch game.

62) Elevator races at the old Goldblatt's Department store on Broadway with Mo.

3) Twilight doubleheaders at old Comiskey Park in the upper deck with Dad watching the knuckleballer Wilbur Wood in red pinstripes before he tore up his knee.

17) Explaining to disbelieving Chicago Police officers summoned by neighbors at three in the morning that the so-called disturbing the peace out on the front porch was indeed a nuanced albeit loud vocal demonstration of the cacaphony of traditional Cantonese Opera for my drunken buddies in appreciative audience.

4) Crisp autumn evenings running fly pattern after stop and go under the streetlamps on the asphalt-covered playground of Pierce Elementary School as the Biggest Guy I Know heaved long bombs philosophizing, "Hell, if you run that far, you might as well catch the damn ball".

20) Replying "Yes" over and over again when the exasperated waitress at the greasy spoon Paul's Restaurant on Clark Street continually asked "Soup or Salad?" thinking she was saying "SUPER SALAD?" until corrected by my Steverino Friend shaking his head.

112) On garage rooftops laying low during all-block, whole neighborhood no-holds-barred free-for-all games of hide-and-seek in Andersonville.

23044) Waking up, boiling three to four Oscar Meyer all-beef weiners for breakfast and lodging two Andes Chocolate Mints between my cheek and gums to melt as I fell asleep...pure manna.

23044a) Mom worked for Andes Chocolate Mint Factory; Grandmother for a local fortune cookie plant; Dad was head barbeque chef (of the whole pig with an apple in its mouth) at Trader Vic's in the Palmer House Hilton; and Grandfather cooked for Ming Choy, a combination chop suey house/pizza parlor/hamburger joint.

98) GUARANTEED 120 bowling average (minimum three games).

120) Three Pariser Specials (open-face burger topped with a sunny-side up egg slathered in brown gravy and a mound of fried potato cubes), three guys, total bill: $8.31 plus tip...like Hawk Harrelson says, "Some just as good, none better."

3.14) Eating among other things cigarette ashes and mothballs when a preschooler which really explains quite a bit.

11) Being eleven years old and bragging about my first job bussing tables for my Third Uncle Chi at the Holiday Inn in Greektown for pocket change.

818) Nearly breaking my neck flying over the handlebars headfirst from suddenly slamming both handbrakes of my Gitano ten-speed bicycle while peddling on a slight downhill in the alley going about twenty-five miles per hour just out of scientific curiosity to see what would happen.

72) Smelt fishing with uncles at Montrose Harbor after dark in early April bundled up for the frigid night temperatures off Lake Michigan trying to keep warm by the fire lit in a city trash can.

1439) Getting sent home by the elementary school nurse for losing consciousness on three separate occasions:

a) banging my head into the unpadded tiled gym wall attempting a layup but slipping from lack of traction on the waxed linoleum floor instantaneously knocking myself out;

b) slipping on ice outside in the playground being chased in a game of tag and impaling my temple on a jagged point of an iron wrought fence causing much bloodspurting; and

c) total lights out from having the air squeezed out of me being on the bottom of a large pile of maybe ten other boys while playing Johnny Tackle.

55) Simply said, pork egg foo young on top of white rice smothered in brown gravy.

XIII) Swigging lukewarm Budweiser straight out of the can to wash down stir-fried snails in garlic and black bean sauce laboriously dug out of their shells with soggy toothpicks still up around two in the morning after Dad comes home from his late shift.

19) Hong Kong Restaurant, 1155 Edisto Drive, Highway 301 South, Orangeburg, South Carolina

874) Right ear fleshy protusion birth defect all but forgotten except maybe as fingerprint.

0) Being accused of shoplifting when hands full of assorted candies at the local drugstore, I suffered a brain cramp and actually placed an oversized Sweet Tart in my coat pocket so as to reach for money in my pants pocket.

Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Waiting for pictures

Two in toto required pulling teeth, a concession rather than a present but eleven months and counting in between is nevertheless root canal surgery on public aid in comparison. For it intimates a laissez faire attitude that eschews any formal gratitude. The proverbial dangling of a carrot just to string along the mule. And to further mangle the saying, while looking at the gift horse in the mouth.

Which begs the question of why so recalcitrant to a straightforward enough request, though the moral dilemma it entails does seem to demoralize, awaiting for something ephemeral albeit amatory to happen.

And that probably explains her hesitation, if not outright balking simply to comply. Sure, the pat excuse about aesthetics, of not measuring up to prevailing standards or cultural ideals of marketed beauty she cites avails. Enough then to fit a narcissistic micromanagement of self-image though what does absolutely titillate is her charming modesty masked as insecurity. Control how one is perceived by limiting supply over demand.

Because such a refusal really bespeaks to succumbing to earlier urges, of then unaffiliated moments except that opportunity since knocked much too late and those coquettish exchanges before have become a guilty pleasure to be cleansed and wiped away.

But what about the cliche of having my cake and eating it, too as is the case for sugar daddies go. Even if the terms of the nonnegotiable contract are non-binding, a price must be selfishly exacted since the privilege is paid for. So money for nothing is just dire straits for how innocuous formal experiments are meant to objectively tease.

Besides, the real crime of passion would be to withhold her true allure from being frozen in time.