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SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2007
12.23.07 - 5:29PM MST >>
saints
i'm sorry guys. you were decimated by injury this year. you started off slowly and because of injury were never able to recover. i'll be there next year rooting for you to do better. god bless you all.
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12.22.07 - 3:55PM MST >>
beer and bars
sitting in a bar drinking turbodog beer last night . some woman is on her cell phone next to me. she is talking to a girlfriend that seems to be going through some hard times. the woman next to me mentions her girlfriend's need for a man. i can't help but listen in. i say, "i'm available for a reasonable fee." the woman must have missed the money part until later. she commented to her friend that i was sexy, with leather and a motorcycle helmet, and that i winked and it turned her on. she told her friend that she'd get my number and hook us up. she told me her friend had a new car. what is this, high school, i thought. thank god she didn't ask for my number when the call was done because seriously, i wanted money if i was gonna fuck this broad's down-and-out girlfriend. a girl like that can be convinced to do anal and swallow, too. damn. i shoulda put on the charm and made three or four hundred bucks.
when she left, there were two young men in the bar stools opposite her. they were in their mid-20's and darned scruffy. they were eating food from the kitchen and drinking my favorite beer in the world, turbodog. they were all right by me just by looking at them. we exchanged pleasantries and they were all right. i gathered from the bartender that they come twice a month on payday and eat and have a few drinks. a mid-40's couple come in and sat in the two seats between us. the guy is about six-five and 270. his wife, she doesn't say much as it is soon apparent that he has all the answers. i ignore them and watch the tv above the bar. after a few minutes, the big guy us standing and talking down to the dudes, saying "if it smells like shit, it's shit!" and repeating it a few times before leaving for a table behind me and to my left. i ask the guys what happened and all they want is no trouble, so they say little. i gather this asshole goes around picking on people smaller than him and his wife wishes she would have divorced him when she had a chance 20 years ago. i cheer the working men and after a few minutes they leave. on their way out, the asshole still has to say more shit to them, hollering across the restaurant. the men are humble and just want to get out without any negative circumstances. i tell the bartender to watch out for them and remark loud enough for him to hear, that he's a hostile fucker who ought not mess with regulars lest he wants his food spit in. i turn around in my chair and face him and his obsequious wife, who i respect about as much as a wet fart, and tell him if he came here to cause trouble, then he should just leave because he isn't welcome in our neighborhood bar. i look like a biker and my neck tattoos are visible above my long-sleeved shirt. i was ready for him to come at me and i knew exactly how to lay him flat. he stared at me for a second and i turn around, drain my beer, slam it on the bar and ask for another, please.
the big man, picking on kids, didn't say a fucking word. he and his idiot wife left without incident. later, the bartender gave me a beer that wasn't on my tab.
morale of the story, don't be an asshole or you'll find there is one bigger than you that isn't afraid of you and your shit.
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12.10.07 - 3:33PM MST >>
just life
always the outrageous one laughing at my own jokes. sometimes that's pretty tactless. sometimes i laugh too loudly and am the only one. i rarely care. it only reinforces my outsider image. the image of a radical, a genius, of being misunderstood. maybe that means some day these words and hundreds of thousands of others will one day be debated over, laughed at, loved and only sometimes understood. maybe i will publish a million words. maybe ten million after i am dead. i live betting i'll experience it alive. i live believing i will make a living as a writer one day, and thousands will enjoy and support my word. today, i laughed and was misunderstood. i might have hurt someone. i was drunk and high and imagining everyone got my context. imagine again, dumbass.
i watched "factotum" on a movie channel the other night with indigo. i love charles bukowski. i've sometimes fashioned myself after him. the drinking, the careless concern for a job, the sex. anyway, check out the movie if you dig the shit i lay down here. then buy a book of his. any book will do.
sick day today. bad chinese food. it is a grey day in phoenix. 52 degrees and intermittent rain sprinkes. dreamt of my father last night. he was cheating on his wife with an old girlfriend from 20 years ago. he offered to pay me to keep it quiet. i did not take it. i wouldn't tell. i imagine if i had that dream a year ago it would be different. still, it's interesting. should i read it like it's a prediction or that it's just telling me how i feel? if it's a prediction, it cannot be that my dad would cheat on his wife. he just wouldn't. does it mean he is going to give me money and i'll turn it down? doubtful on both accounts. so all it is is my unconscious mind saying you wouldn't bribe your dad. a year ago i'd have bribed him in my dreams. i'd have taken whatever i could get and i would have walked away giving him the finger.
i apologize for writing so little over the past few months, everybody. it seems that my writing is fueled by amazing or stressful circumstances and the life i am leading now is neither. thank god. in the meantime, buy my book and read this.
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11.11.07 - 3:33PM MST >>
shoot forth thunder
two months. wow. had to get my head straight. had to find thanks in the stability and ability to care for the woman i love and her punk kid. had to rejoice. it's a good job with good men. it's a nice home with women who love me. it's mellow and happy. i have not been used to that. i am getting used to it. it isn't the best for my writing, which feeds on struggle, but i need this for now. it's good. the writing will come back. it's too deep within me to stay low for long.
my book is published and you can get it for only $3 here.
worry not if it says only one or two are available. they are selling well and my publisher has assured me that "we mail their orders to them immediately."
from the publisher, reactor press of san francisco:
Trent Reker has lived in New Orleans and heard God speak to him "with anger when blessings are demanded and with blessings that came when my soul was humbled." His is a world flooded with words, anger, desperation and misunderstanding; a world drowning in Mad Dog 20/20 and Mountain Dew, mended with salubrious sex, and covered in tattoos. He has "cursed new orleans with a flood" and is repaid by the righteous touch of humanity. shoot forth thunder is a collection of short essays that will bring you in touch with intense rage and emotions coaxed to a simmer through lyrical language.
if you buy one and want me to autograph it, feel free to shoot me an email from the link to the top-left and we'll make arrangements for you to mail it to me or meet me in phoenix for a beer at my favorite place in town. you have to write to find out where that is.
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11.11.07 - 5:09PM MST >>
that's what i am
some days the weight wears thin the hate has been the dream is now
it isn't a lie when the say it's the journey
'cause you get fat on top
kill the king
shoot the president
the hurt that denies the master's will
and the jump dive and thrill
the coming of the end to begin stoned
like the jews would do to you
before the romans came to crucify
some days later when the writers strike
and these words become like an anti-drug commercial
and what do you know if you've never been high
wisdom is knowing how
not just reading and thinking wow
how about now
when i'm a slam poet rhyming
glad we brought black people here
just a little angry i understand
it's the confusion over knowing your past
and wishing to forget it
once heresy was punished by death
with my breath
i seek truth
lucky man
two ways for retirement
hard work and inheritance
two ways to enjoy that won't anger
the word was the first thing
what do you bring
i write and i sing
lucky man
what a blessing to be alive and to contemplate it
to live beyond the animal desires of habitual response
drinking beer at work
the president lies time files and the beatles make me cry
lucky man
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09.15.07 - 11:26PM PST >>
this actually took hours
thanks for letting me know your url has changed, fucker.
first, or actually second, things have been a little crazy. it is really all just emotional bullshit that male tv soap actors could do on coke for a million bucks. fuck. i do it for free.
but i did get a lot of time to write today. first time in two weeks i wrote. it's everything or writing. take what you can get and like it. besides that i've had email issues since we moved into our own place, which is nice with hardwood floors, fans in vaulted ceilings, with a large back yard that is comprised of grass. mmm, grass. kids, love grass. it has a firepit in the middle. that will come in handy in, hm, does december in phoenix exist, or does it go straight from october to april and we all age but don't experience it? you know, as crazy as that sounds, it will be what someone experiences this winter. i'll be glad that i can wear leather on my motorcycle again.
is the world written by the imagination of our collective unconscious? do some dream or think or say or etch in stone something that exists only because it was imagined, or do we really have free will? is god not a single entity but the conglomerated mental energies of beings that exist beyond our own awareness? is god built by our own imaginations? what imaginations might come from beings that kill each other for any reason?
rod sterling is making my bed in a place that doesn't seem like heaven or hell. it's just there. without commercials for cigarettes.
i hope you are feeling better. sick sucks unless you do a ton of drugs and write a poem. then you spend the next day drinking orange juice and eating fried egg sandwiches on the couch watching tv and it all evens out.
you say writers and artists live by weird rules. weird rules? what rules? pay no attention to anything but what you want to write. if there is a critic or an editor who has an opinion you don't agree with, fuck them. no rules but yours. you knew i'd say that.
my favorite typewriter is a one of it's kind in my house because it is not a portable. i have seven of those. it's a huge, black 1929 royal that weighs 27 pounds.
and what about being engaged? dude, i've been writing seriously and online for two and a half years. i thought by now you would have read numerous posts where i reference the woman i am engaged to. i am disappointed. i thought you were a fan but you don't know anything. she's a central figure in the mythos that i've built around misteradiant. a fundamental understanding of the relationship between misteradiant and indigo is that they are engaged. yes, i am not misteradiant, but i figured that during our correspondence you would have surmised at least that i've been engaged for over three and a half years.
it was during my first visit to her in new orleans. she had come to houston with her daughter and made the most stupendous thanksgiving spread. best thanksgiving dinner i ever had. i went back to visit with her to new orleans. it was 2003. the night before her birthday on november 30, we were at her friend's house in the lower garden district. he was playing a portishead song i asked him to play. i was once in love with another woman who had the same birthday as bond who turned me onto portishead. my band, the fellaheen, recorded a song that i wrote at a time when i'd listen to portishead's album "dummy" as i fell asleep. when i first played it for her, it became her favorite song. it still is. all these moments of future and past came to one moment and i was wearing an eighteen-hundred dollar wedding ring on a chain around my neck. she was wearing her high school class ring, with an onyx stone. as we sat on a worn antique sofa, she suddenly gave it to me as the song was playing. i took the rings from my around neck and unhooked the chain, kneeling in front of her. i asked her to marry me. she said yes as she wept and threw her arms around me. i have a photo on the wall of us taken a minute after i asked her. i believe she is the woman i was meant to be with forever. i believe that she comes from a part of the universe that came to me before. i call her my gift from god.
so there. that's what you get for asking.
the girls are well and together we are good. i've posted on misteradiant.com today but i will add to it because it's probably poetically rendered and who knows what people think when they read it because it's freaking poetry. you still better be saving my emails to you. we have our own place again. we moved out of my dad's two weeks ago today into a ten year-old 2-bedroom plus den house in central phoenix with a 2-car garage. we have new furniture to finally replace what was lost in katrina. we are south of a major street named indian school road. guess what it's named after. i wonder if somewhere in the south there is a road called african-american school road. probably not. it was just nigger street jail until they tore it down and built a subdivision, widening it and naming it martin luther king boulevard.
no wait, that's what they did with ronald reagan. mlk was in the city. ron was suburban. yeah. that's right. heh heh, um, you gonna take another hit?
today's episode was brought to you by grass. "GRASS! grass!" (baritone singers that time). and the color GREEN! with special appearance by the number seven! hooray, seven! i remember when you were a stripper from texas in honolulu. wonder what you're doing now. we're here. we're good.
ever read the autobiography of malcolm x as told to alex haley? it's cool. i'm reading zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. hope to read confederacy of dunces next. read the heart is a lonely hunter recently. sad book. glad i'm not poor folk in the south in 1933.
zebbldudallah bipoodoo;
MR
(i'm the only one who speaks zapfortian, so don't even try to figure that last part out) |
09.15.07 - 11:12PM PST >>
who doesn't want to fuck amy winehouse?
don't you know what boys you could get if you were into punk rock
the boss of the man in black boots laughs and points with a don't you know it grin
william burroughs jokes with jack i know how to write
my signature has changed
except for periods and commas and quotation marks
the planet hangs from a noose with red roses weaved within it
dead and painted red
sex upon the cross without blood
dusty and dry
justice
2001 all over again
i love this song
this love song
whenever i'm alone with you
some people sample shit and i once thought that was crap
but i do it all the time
i have a photo on the wall of a naked woman with her legs spread
on her knees bent with her toes pointed straight up
like a W
and the word
HYP
OCR
ITE
like that on the wall behind her
with a key and three pieces of a wedding ring
with a fake diamond
in a plastic bag
i call it art
i've wished to be a fisherman before
remember back in montana to get an international scout
with a tattoo and long hair and a red guitar
the tattoo must have seemed huge to my mom
and my step father respected me when i could grip his hand as long as he could mine
as hard as our strength allowed
for forty minutes
we went out for pizza and beer after that
it was the first time we ever went out for a drink
is that a big thing to men between their father's
to go to a strip club for the first time
to a sporting event
commas
the dirty thing that was new orleans
dirty people and let me tell you how
sweaty with rhythm
shifty with a hat brim
dreamboat mississippi visions strolling along
strongarm president with a gun to prevent you from a riot
not with food or water and a hand up into the truck
taking you who knows where
beating with thanks
for not being in iraq
those people
they were poor
the thing about new orleans
we were treated like iraq
with guns raised against the riot that never came
all we wanted was water
number one thing
our lives reduced to it
for the dying young and old and ourselves
nobody writes about how many babies died in the days after the flood
in their momma's arms
dead babies stained with tears
dead because the soldiers obeyed orders and raised their guns against americans
like the mother of a dead child wants to kill
no
she wants to die
shame on george bush
i curse him
with love beating for another in my soul i ask god to destroy his
that it might have nothing to do with the future of the sprits of every man and woman who ever live
that he is truly forgotten
prayers of the writer
the artist
not the walmart cashier
who hasn't loved and lost has gained nothing. |
09.15.07 - 05:16PM PST >>
the storms are different in phoenix
pirate mug with rum and then a beer
heavy with head and her new teeth
a misconception where the president says success instead of victory
like the souls of the dead smile
like the lies are more honest bile
and the truth becomes unshackled
with her lawyers at her side
she says she was raped
goodbye freedom
goodbye forgotten hurricane
big house to be sold
i grow old with a love song about prostitution
i seek wisdom through the path of excess
i distance those who love me by being an asshole
my terms
my ride to the liquor store
the road less traveled on a zen motorcycle rage
where science is god and the guitar sweeps the air of all it's dust
the tobacco smell
the bad breath
and your heavenly father
the black kids walk back from the market with a two liter of mountain dew
blue jeans and black t-shirts
it's a hundred and five degrees
and the girls come back with raw fish from the hawaiian restaurant
mad that i am smoking my pipe in the house
killing my alkie buzz
maybe i'll drink a shot of rum from my mug again
maybe i'll turn up the music and holler again
with a skull and crossbones on it all
from the flag of captain emmanuel wynne
because it's only a matter of time before you turn to bones
forsaken heaven
curse god above
bring you my love
the rock singer wails feedback dreams
reminds me of what now
reminds me of sex and holding hands as we stroll down the winter street
of sweat in the bedroom and in the summer sun
in the dreamlight of the morning in new orleans thinking fuck what now
the day becomes night
sleeping through
_________
i don't know how it happened, or where it was when i became and angry man. i remember throwing a hamburger my mother made against the wall, making the meat and condiments splash all over a five-food radius, including the ceiling. i was fifteen. since then i've ruined a marriage and all of my friendships but one. i've hurt people i love with words and broken walls.
the woman i love is watching a documentary about new orleans musicians. there are storm clouds in the sky but the storm season is over and the wall of heat phoenix emits kills thunderstorms better than the bush administration kills civil liberties. like their will for amerika, it's grey outside. grey and dry and still. i am reminded of the grey mask of death, the classic color for decay. not black or white, grey. the sun bleaches bones white but still, phoenix is grey.
i miss new orleans. i miss it and i'm angry with my red european sofa and my new home and my job and this bullshit stability boredom. it isn't making the women watching tv happy. she misses new orleans. she misses the place that was the first place where she felt at home. she misses the history, the tattered dreams of a ghostly waltz, the vampire underground, the bondage clubs, the 24-hour bars, the trees and architecture that existed two hundred and fifty years ago, the voodoo and the racism that went both ways. she misses the town that invented jazz. she misses the suffocating humidity. sweat makes things important. i can ride my motorbike ten miles in one hundred and ten degree heat and not sweat here. it's too dry to sweat. it's too dry culturally. it's too dry to write with rhythm and passion i had sweating at my kitchen window off magazine street. i miss the church bells that rang every day for 175 years before they knew me and the black girls whistling as i walked back from the market with mad dog wine and cigarettes. i miss the trolley and fat tourists. i miss the bars and the food. i miss the inspiration. what i wrote there was the best stuff i laid out in my life. it was better than this. i am a product of my environment and phoenix is just hot and still. there is no beat, no history, no tattered dream made beautiful by the wear and tear of generations who speak a language that have been scattered and will now be assimilated into the insult that is middle america's passion to tear down the past for a bland new present of corporate greed.
that last sentence will be the best part of this entire post.
i am less angry today than i was two months ago. now i am just sad. now we are finally safe. we finally made it. i have a stable job that provides for my family. we have a home and furniture and cable tv with every channel. but my stomach hurts. maybe it's the alcohol. i still drink a lot. every day. i even drink at work since the boss stacked the 'fridge with stellas. he did that because he knew i'd enjoy it. it's a really good gig. but it isn't poetry. it isn't enough. i feel like crying.
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09.04.07 - 06:57PM PST >>
found poem about dad
knock know
who's there
jesus wielding the torchflame of judgment
my hands are burnt
streaming fliers of snowdrift memories
when everything was young and bright and dreams
i think you used to lie to me
i think i stole from you
thinking we deserved it
we deserved something
you and i shooting blame in the desert target practice
rolling one hundred miles an hour in the porsche
remembering when the whale tail kicked in
laughing at basketball games
learning how to make a drink for your friends
who became mine
it was a cool way to grow up
you didn't do wrong then
smoking pot got her arrested
when i met her
i told her
it would get her in trouble
now she feels i do not accept her
even as i partake of the five-minute orgasm
sometimes
was i younger when i hid in the bushes in the back yard by the pool
when you looked for me
with the police
when sarah saw me and knew when she was what
two?
i'll trust you
you'll trust me
we've had fifteen years to figure that out
i learned more from my mother socio-economically than i learned from you
obviously
and it wasn't good
but i would not change who i am
how i feel who i love
stupid poem
just end happily will ya
thank you
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09.03.07 - 10:26PM PST >>
labor day
two days ago we moved into our new home. two years ago on the first we were rescued from new orleans. today, we have built our furniture, taken all our books from boxes for the first time in two years, pulled newspaper from glassware and even found the surround system for my laptop. a song from "love song for bobby long" is playing; "different stars" by trespassers william. it's sad. it reminds me of two years ago. indigo has unpacked her box of magical elements and laid them out on a coffee table against the north wall of our bedroom. her new altar. she bought new orleans absolut vodka. it comes with a little booklet of six new drinks you can make with it. she has mixed a few for me called "the rebuilder." the vodka is mango and black pepper flavored. the drink has orange and pineapple juice in it. it's got that pepper pop i like so much. it's the well-spoken and educated brother of the hillbilly drunk that is my bathtub-stirred buttmunch gargle juice. i'm feeling all classy and shit. all the proceeds from the sale of the limited new orleans absolut goes to new orleans non-profits such as habitat for humanity. i am rebuilding the town i love in a small way with each sip. ooo, i'm a philanthropist, ma!
wish i had something great to say. i don't. i have a steady job and i work with good men. while there are issues for us to worry about like brakes for my motorbike, a broken latch on the hatchback of the car, and indigo is not making any money as a ballroom dance instructor, i make enough for us to get by. we left all the broken furniture we bought at walmart after katrina in texas and my father gave us a bit to buy a
sofa and chair and coffee table and a huge bookcase and new towels and bedspreads and more. we have a very nice home for once and god has given me a great blessing.
the dog has jumped up into my lap. he's a ten year old purebred cocker spaniel. we rescued him on our way out of new orleans. it is his anniversary, too. two years ago on the first of september we found him. two mondays ago we took him to the vet because he was hacking and vomiting phlegm and bile all of the night before. the vet told us he had cancer and was going to die soon. indigo called me at work in hysterics. i was home in 20 minutes, riding my motorbike in 110 degrees with tears streaming down my face. when i got home, indigo and my step-mom were sitting at the bar and she jumped up to me, opening her arms. her eyes were red and her face puffy. i held her and soon cried like i have never cried, sobbing loudly for the poopy puppy who has given us so much love and who has received so much from us. he is spoiled, but he is a good boy. he listens, won't beg when he is told to go lay down, does not bark unless there is a darned good reason, and does not dig or generally screw things up inside or out. if i sigh in frustration and he hears me, he comes to me and paws at me or licks me. how can i stay mad when this intuitive dog is there to love me with nothing else in his heart but to know i am happy? but two weeks ago he is going to die. the next day i took off work and we drove him to get a sonogram at a specialist's office to be sure. stupid fucking vet. the pictures we saw told another story. he had a pretty bad respiratory infection and all he needed was antibiotics for a few weeks. it's not too uncommon for cockers to get this and we were told we were good parents. now he leans over, turns his head up to me and licks my chin. fucking dog. i love him so much.
and that is that. we have a new home. for the first time in three years everything we own is out of boxes.
a couple hours later:
a bitter memory to be forgotten in a fisherman
you in my arms with light
from that song you know i love
on a hurtling train
beating out my name
in my head
if i could remember everything i've ever thought and known
if i could transcend time by visiting the past right here and now
held fast for the day of falling chains
on that day if i could make it today
i will take thee in my hands
why i believe in god and my father doesn't
i believe and my brothers don't
a hurt in them that keeps them from experiencing the magical
one does not have to be smart to believe in science
or stupid to believe in god
they don't know how i believe
how god is omnipotent but is not beyond time
who has grown bored with us
who loved us dearly
once
the saddest day of all that exists for humanity would be if we lived long enough for god to die
that my life might be a love song to god
seems right
like taking out that photo from all those years ago and smiling
some memories don't leave me
it's always new orleans
royal street with the punk kid looking at leather mardi gras masks of birds and lions
as her mother makes a middle-aged married man come
it's always new orleans with africa and france and spain and the civil war and congo square where jazz was born
drinking at the alibi with the waiters and strippers with what was once john's money
it was jesus drunk with curse words
it was prophets and prostitutes
it was primal and beautiful searching with the pope and voodoo
knowing somehow that it would all end
betting we won't be there when it does
but we were
a slow nerve action
why didn't jack kerouac dig in new orleans?
he only found the racist south and knew no better than to end up in boring tourist bars he hated
bukowski went to the local bars but didn't last long
i think he got lonely
i think i know the answer
my highness lying upon my loss
where loneliness is holiness and i don't die alone
where i found great anger and love and hurt
where the beauty can be seen beyond the cracks of paint
what it was once
remembering something i knew
the daughters of lot giggled in our straining house against the winds of hurricane katrina
whew
i still know that when and where
we are here now
she is walking around the house with burning sage
around doors and windows and wafting through each room
sage reminds me of the desert sky about to rain
we are safe and in the best home we have ever had.
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