For


I got a text that said
my godmother had died
and also my godfather's
godmother's daughter died,
so I just took the train
to Union Station and got
a cab to Arlington where
their church is but no one
was around, so I said
let me just look at that
text again and it said
December 4th. I was a week
early. I'm literally standing
on line at Union Station now
waiting for them to open up
to let us on the train. Yeah,
yesterday. I'm headed back.
But hey, I did some touristing.
Walked the whole length of
the mall, which is a lot bigger
than it is on TV. Did all
the monuments, the main ones
anyway, Washington Monument,
Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson,
Martin Luther King, went
to the Pentagon and then
to Crystal City out there,
where there's a mall out there,
a shopping mall, and I found
the exact watchband I've been
looking for for forever. So hey,
made lemons out of lemonade. I'll
just come back down next week.

Blank


Total coincidence --
Here we go --
There's no such thing --
I told you so.

Few days ago I see this movie by Les Blank. He did Blazing Saddles, right? That's Mel Blank, moron. Mel Brooks, not Blank. What's up, doc? Doc on the singer Leon Russell. It's thirty years old but just got released. What year is this? A Poem is a Naked Person, but they never explain the title. He's all about that white church sound, right? But was he trying to be black or is that just a Texas thing? He's from Oklahoma. Who? Leon Russell. You know why Texas doesn't fall into the Gulf? Two-thousand fifteen, dumbshit. 'Cause Oklahoma sucks!

Anyway a week before I saw it I read this thing, just came across it on the shelf, this little story where a missionary tells a jungle savage he should cover up his naked self. The savage says but you're uncovered too. The missionary says but that's my face, that's just my face. The savage says but our whole body is a face. The guy who tells the story says the moral of the story's that a poem's all face. What does that even mean? I know, what does that mean?

You guys use Facetime? I hate that shit. It creeps me out. Like it's not quite real. Exactly, right? Who said our truest faces are our driver's license photographs? Remember what that Asian girl said that time you fucked her and she thought you disrespected her on purpose? I forget exactly how. "You want me to lose face." That's it. So sad. Wait, what Asian girl? That was some heavy shit.

I used to know this guy, chemistry geek from Milwaukee, total Packer fanatic, fat slob but sharp as a tack, and we'd get stoned a lot and talk, talk shit, and we'd forget what we were talking about of course. Of course. Forget what we were talking about, so we set up a tape recorder, cassette recorder, to record ourselves when we lost track, but check this out. We set up a second recorder, the master tape. The master's on no matter what. It gets it all, gets all of it. You can hear two of him and two of me. We're listening to ourselves and going "oh, you said that" and "I remember now," but hearing two of each of us and on the master you can hear us laughing with ourselves. I found it, found the tape, a couple months ago. Just totally embarrassing. Un-spooled it and threw it away.




Where do you guys want to eat? I wouldn't mind some decent enchiladas. I'm sick of Mexican food. Tex-Mex or Mexican? Either. Both. Can't we just get some normal food for once? It just now hit me. He made a movie about that blues guitarist from Houston. The one we saw that summer there. He's got that song about the boy who stutters until he sings. That's real. That really is a thing. There was that guy Mel Tillis. And then he didn't like the band and kicked them off the stage. Who? The blues guy. Lightning Hopkins. It's Lightnin'. What? No g: Lightnin'. Kicked them off, one by one. No one knew what was going on. I know the feeling. And then he broke a string and kept on playing anyway.

What festival was that again? Juneteenth. To celebrate that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed. It took time for the news to get there to the Gulf Coast slaves. Is that what that Stones song's all about? How come you dance so good? How come you taste so good. You're such an asshole. Just ignore him. I really wish I could.

A face expresses what the words the mouth says don't always say. Or says without saying them, or maybe not in words, in other words. Who said that? Each part matters just as much as each part does. As each other part does. There is no other part.

He said, "That's all right. Lightnin' don't need all the strings anyway." In that song the boy keeps stuttering so he says, "If you can't say it--"

Say that again, what you said before, about there is no other part. That's it. There is no other part.

"If you can't say it, just sing." And then that first long note, sustained.