June 19, 2003
Developed from notes of April 12, 03

it would make a good title for my life's story
or at least the story of my life in the past year
eating breakfast cereal today
i helped my brain wake up
by watching a few cuts from F & L in Vegas
a film that would give most americans the bad spins but
which helps center me
in weird evil times like these
baghdad's back yard and
the threshold of the new 100 years war
on ourselves
the human race
the race to the grave
smile now!
and wave

yeah whatever

so i flip through a few scenes
from the movie of the book
that started this whole turkeyneck career of mine
and when my cereal is done
i aim the remote at the menu screen
select trailer and
watch and
when the action peaks and
the narrator
speaks
of the story that defined a generation
that quick surge of adrenaline
of joy and prickly goosebump skin
goes roaring through me
i giggle and smile reflexively
suddenly high
with that rich sense of knowing
that you were there and
alive in that corner of time in the world
as thompson said

but as quick as goosebumps come
they go
the giggle shifts and
in an instant i'm sobbing
for i wasn't there in that corner of time in the world
alive by 66 yes
but in my infancy
with surbanite parents for whom
san francisco's hippie heyday
must have seemed a distant and
freakish thing
(not unlike their son's whole adult life - ha ha)

another bogus catharsis
that hollywood trick of hitting you right where you live
and speaking of bogus
to hear my father speak of
the childishness of protesters today and
how he'd seen it all before back then
tells me quite clearly that beneath
his self-righteousness
his false bravado of having it all together
he knows that he missed out
on something very big and
beautiful available to him in his corner of time in the world

it's times like this
i'd like to tear my heart out and
hurl it at the sun
for my own crimes of absence
of having not been alive in the summer of 65
of having reached out for and
been denied participation in the making
of the movie of the story
that defined a generation

and most recently
having been so mired in poverty of pocket and soul
last february
down and out in new mexico
that i missed the worldwide peace protest completely
missed all the protests
for the distraction of
the powerful protests in my mind
and just trying to stay alive



now it's over
all of it
no plan B
and nothing more to do for it
but try and pretend
pretend
pretend
that this isn't the end but
a new beginning
today
the first day and
all that jive.

-His Lordship RSM the Duke of the Unscratchable Itch