LISTEN:

I cancelled my gym membership. I hate that place and I never ever wanted to go, even though it’s right across the street from me. I only had a membership because the publishing company I work for gives me a $30 stipend every month towards a gym or the YMCA or a yoga class or something like that. For whatever reason I went for the gym membership. Who knows. I’ve only really gone maybe twenty times in almost two years, what with it being so awful and all, so forget about it. I’m done!!

Thing is, I don’t need any of that shit because I HAVE A HUGE TRACTOR TIRE IN MY BACKYARD WHICH I POUND ON WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER:

. . . and I recently acquired a bicycle with Laura Rokas’ help—a bicycle that is so beautiful and so 1982 (in a good way) that just about everyone wants to steal it from me. See here:

So: rather than pay $30 a month to not go to a place I hate, reimbursement or not, I’m going to drop $100 on a used weight bench and a bunch of weights. You see this stuff all the time . . . some clown buys a brand new set as his New Year’s resolution, and then promptly abandons his dreams of getting fit a month and a half into the next hellish rotation around the sun. I’m gonna find a guy like that is what I’m saying. And while I’m at it, I’m going to get a punching bag too. Matt and I found a punching bag stand (???) the other day, so all we need is the bag. So now, hey presto, no more gym. I can do all of The Stuff in my backyard, or on my bicycle, riding around Oakland and Berkeley after midnight on my cute 1982-ass bicycle.

AND WHAT OF THE $30?

I have decided that I’m going to go to Piedmont Springs every other week at $18 a pop, which comes out to $34 a month. Hey, that’s only $4 more a month than I spend on a gym membership that I absolutely despise!

Piedmont Springs rules. You book your own room with a big-ass hot tub and a shower in it, and you’re surrounded by some good wood, with the ceiling being wide open to either an ice-cold cloudless California sky—or an ice-cold starry California nighttime sky! Sometimes it rains, and then you find yourself having a real good time. And you get a whole hour!!! See here:

Yes, and so I am going to bring a huge thermos full of tea, and another huge thermos full of cold water. And then I’ll have me a real good time by myself. I love sitting in hot water is the thing. Or didn’t you know?

LISTEN: I’m booking an hour for next week. Does anyone wanna come? Actually, my friend Cara Ellison, the Scottish writer who lived in my Victorian house in Ghost Town, in West Oakland, some years ago, yes, while writing a book that I make an appearance in—she’ll be in town on Saturday for the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco . . . so I reckon I’ll bring her along. But! You should join us! It’s gonna be real cool.

Well . . . let me know. ☆彡

OKBYE

. . . Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.

chapter 42: ‘the whiteness of the whale’ (moby-dick of course)

another successful bender. it cost me all of $11

hey baby sometimes you just gotta bend it till it breaks off!!!

see you next time!!!!

i’m an angel btw :,)

if james dean is the ishmael to nicholas ray’s captain ahab, then i gotta say . . . . . . . i can’t wait to be old-ass nicholas ray and old-ass captain ahab lol

(captain rayhab?? yeah ok)

happy birthday to my best friend in the whole world

“HE WHO MAKES
A BEAST OF HIMSELF
GETS RID OF THE PAIN
OF BEING A MAN.”
—DR. JOHNSON

Well Doc, if I MAY BE SO BOLD: I would swap out “beast” for “cartoon character” and, hey presto, you got me. . . .

Though hey, I wouldn’t mind being a beast . . . and maybe that comes later~

Speaking of making yourself something else: I was talking to my friend a bit ago, and maybe I shouldn’t mention his name, so I won’t, and I said: Did that son of a bitch you know get his hands on any mescaline? My friend’s friend, apparently, is the go-to guy for mescaline and peyote. I had been asking for a few months now to no avail, so maybe the well has run dry. All of my life, I can’t seem to locate the stuff, nor peyote for that matter, which of course is the parent of mescaline. I couldn’t even find a fucking hallucinogenic cactus when I lived in Texas, for shit’s sake! What’s the deal? And my friend said, you know, his friend, he’s working on it. I sure do appreciate that. And apparently my friend’s friend said that in the meantime he could “teach” me how to make mescaline if I really wanted to know. I’m terrified of poisoning myself, though hell, I said I’d take the recipe if he’s got it lying around.

I saw him today, you know, my friend, while driving through Temescal, which is the quote-unquote hip part of North Oakland on Telegraph Avenue. He was crossing the street near Koryo Village. I rolled down my window and screamed something about mescaline. He gave me a thumbs up! I’ve known this son of a bitch for something like ten years, so I reckon at that point you can get away with things like this, not that it’s ever stopped me before. . . .

Well: Here’s hoping. I can’t keep asking because I’ve asked enough. Once I get the stuff I’m thinking I might drive to Santa Cruz and get freaked out by myself . . . just let it bleed red, and all that, in a forested place. Though I suppose I wouldn’t mind it if someone came along with me. I’m gonna get as much of this stupid crap as I can, so I’ll bet I’ll have extra, in which case let us dream wide awake side-by-side . . . let us pass through dimensions! . . . one foot in this place and the other world, and maybe others between.

Hmmm. I know someone I can ask, and I’ll bet she’d go. If you’re reading this, my friend, you went to UC Santa Cruz. And we lived together some years ago now. You wanna come??

That’s enough about mescaline for now I suppose. Really at this point I’ll try just about anything. Uppers, downers, screamers, laughers . . . why the hell not. I’m having a real good time over here, which is why I haven’t been writing as much. I gotta write more and still get spooky, and then I will be living in the dreamworld I hope to glimpse on capsuled peyote dust. You know what they say:

GOOD FOR HEALTH
BAD FOR EDUCATION

Finally, I wrote a missed connection for the first time in a long time. I just like writing them is all. This happened last Sunday when I was getting breakfast with my friend li’l Stevie, who I met in Portland years ago, and who is real cool and lives here now.

Here:

lol

Have I incriminated myself enough yet? Maybe so. I have made myself a beast, at any rate. So long for now, jerks!!!!!!!!!

yeah baby