Bag of Books Sale

hey, i thought you guys might be interested,

the Library is having a bag sale at title wave!!!

Fill a bag with books for $10.

Thursday, April 30 and Friday, May 1
10 a.m.–4 p.m.

• Used merchandise only
• Limit 10 bags per customer
• Books must fit in bag completely
• Sale applies to books and audiobooks only

• The Title Wave Used Bookstore
• 216 N.E. Knott St.
• 503.988.5021

proud to be an american

there is a rest area
outside of aberdeen washington
that serves free coffee, cookies, hot cocoa
and every so often pumpkin pie

i stop here from time to time
in my delivery van
to pad my hours a bit

today the sun is shining
i have a cup of hot cocoa
and a copy of hunger by knut hamsun
it's a beautiful day

i watch from a picnic bench
by the dumpsters
as obese women
with small dogs
and even smaller shorts -
shorts that are much
much too short -
smoke cigarettes
and apply make-up
as their white trash
bastard children
burn ants
with a magnifying glass

the fat falls from their rumps
and out of their short shorts
like hamburger meat
from the grinder

20 feet away
a trucker smiles
at me
from his big rig

he watches me
watching them

even from a distance
i can tell
that he is jerking off

it's times like this
that i am proud
to be an american.

the man who never says goodbye

31
plaid on plaid
whiskey five nights a week
mysterious tangerine in his pocket
stolen sunglasses that hang from his neck
yes, yes, this is the man who never says goodbye

ballad of a dying clock

you wake up one sunday morning
only to realize
that you have grown old without warning,
and that age is not part of thee equation...

and not only does your heart run
like your dead grandfather's
sputtering plymouth once did,
but emotionally it moves to the rhythm
of a dying clock...

and you realize then,
that the shelves you have built upon
your plum brown bedroom walls,
the dog that sleeps at your feet as you type,
and the plants who slumber in the sun
atop your bookcase
mean more than yesterday...

and only then do you realize,
that death--in all of her terrific glory--
feels more like a long lost friend
than anything else...

I'm Sick and This Crow Is Dead (2008)

so i've caught about three or four different variations of the flu/cold in the last 2 months. i drink tons of juice and water. i take my vitamins and bike as much as i can. i don't sit around inside unless i'm recording or playin music.   at work i cashier some, have to touch raw meat some and have customers with their sick kids coughing all over the place so i'm constantly sanitizing and washing my hands. today is my 3rd day totally laided up in bed. i've watched way too many dumb movies and i have too much of a head ache to read books for any extended amount of time. in a state of paranoia i thought i had lupus and then had a weird medicine dream. then i had a weirder dream about yelling into one of those communicator tube things in an old light house. (definately put in my mind by the Dr Who episode where the doctor and leela solve the mystery at fang rock). i tried to go to the closest free clinic to my house today, but its sunday and they were closed. as my girlfriend was leaving to go study at psu, i was thinkin about hauling my 4 track recorder and a microphone upstairs to record some haikus and maybe some songs on the omnichord or something low key. then i heard her holler at me from somewhere outside. as i struggled melodramatically out of bed she kept tellin me to come outside. when i got to the front door there was a dead crow laying on the sidewalk. i remembered in all those plays and books and shit about how dead animals are foreshadowing for later events..... like when the horses eat each other in macbeth. my girl wanted to know what we should do. call animal services? call the city? call the humane society? no. i said i'd take care of it. i grabbed a shovel and she left. at first, all i could think was, "i love watching the crows play in my front yard and get in little scuffs with the squirrels and cats on the block." i remember one time actually seeing a crow get so pissed at a squirrel that it actually pick't the squirrel up and flew up in the air just to drop it about 20 feet from the ground. i thought i'd bury the crow in our garden. like some circle of life kinda thing. then i started wondering....was it diseased? would it poison our crops? kinda freaked me out a little to think about it. i decided to just put it in the garbage can. i'm all for animal rights and i hated watching all the animals bummed out behavior when i worked at the zoo. i'm not sure if putting it in the trash can was the right thing to do, but i'm definately under the weather and didn't feel like digging it a grave. i, maybe irrationally, imagined my cat or some other neighborhood animal digging it up as a new play toy and just got nauseous. anyways, i scooped the crow into a shovel and was surprised at how heavy it was. i've had a pet bird before, but this thing was bigger. the poor creature's neck was limp and his head flopped a bit when i scooped him up. i didn't see any blood and its wings were not broken. was it sick? had it been hit by a car? i figured that if a dog or cat got it, it would've snapped the crows wings or something. it was in the position of a sleeping chicken. i don't know that i necessarily believe in an after life for any creatures on this planet...myself included. but i really hope that poor crow died peacefully. i also hope that, if there is an after life or if souls or whatever just hang around like casper, i hope that this crow doesn't haunt me for throwing its remains in a grey plastic city of portland dumpster. and as for the foreshadowing, i keep reminding myself that i'm just loaded on cough syrup and i don't believe in that kind of stuff... i kind of hate shakespeare. for a minute i thought that it was shakespeare's ghost that had put this dead animal on my sidewalk to get me back for dissing his lifes work. there is no scientific explanation for that so i'm just gonna drink some juice and read some comics. gotta remind myself that its ok to call in sick to work if yr really sick. 

another hopeless journey to nowhere

Delivering wine for a living sounds like a fine profession... It is not. It's not the worst, but far from fine. They don't give me a discount, and the hours are inconsistent at best. She sends me a text--Can you come in at 8:45AM tomorrow? Earl just made another order. It's 11PM... Great. I was at the bar thinking i worked at noon... Off to bed. Late. Missed coffee. Missed breakfast. Missed sleep.

The van starts up fine... The smell of Diesel fills my nose. I drive to Salem, about an hour each way. It's an easy delivery and the Italian owner is the real stand up type. I like him--He's short, balding, has a thick accent and his face has the look of a worn out boxer.... I wonder what brought this poor fool from his "Madrepatria" to the armpit of Oregon called Salem? I drive back to Portland and get another one out to Hillsboro--Another shit-hole about 45 Min. outside of Portland. I used to think the guy at this wine shop was a total douche-bag. I'm wrong today, he is polite and gives me 25% off a bottle of red.

The day is looking up and i have a descent bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir

to share with a certain lady friend of mine upon her return to the States.

The last delivery is downtown to a club called "Dirty".

Dirty? Jesus... I unload 5 cases of Prosecco in front of the homeless shelter on W. Burrnside and 3rd. I walk past the line of hungry washed up tweekers, drunkards and aspiring writers waiting for their cot and a food handout. The "club" is next door. The front door is locked. A sign reads:

Dirty Nightlife:

no hats
no sneakers--any color,
no gold teeth...

The sign went on and on and on...

So, disgusted with this meat market I walk around to the side door. Locked.

I smell something. Something horrendous. I look down in amazement and disbelief. My foot and my hand truck have found a steaming fresh pile of bum shit; A pile the size of a sewer rat but the shape and color of an apple fritter...

Yes, friends... I stepped in it... My nostrils filled with thee oh so mighty fragrant odor of human shit. (Unlike dog shit, and far from cat shit, human shit hits the nose like no other.) And when Fuck Face opens the door i say:

"What the fuck! There is human shit in your doorway!"

Fuck Face replies, "That's just dog shit."

"So you just left a pile of shit in front of the door?"

"I didn't put it there." says Fuck Face.

Fuck you Fuck face...

So I bring the Prosecco in--without wiping my feet. They don't have a check. Fuck Face says he can't have a check until three. We close at 2:30, so against Fuck Face's wishes

I load the wine back into the van begin a hopeless journey back to the warehouse...