The Words of the Profits Were Written On the Studio Walls

Johnny says, "No fucking way."

My first thought was that there must be some mistake. The car dealership called to ask me when I could "come aboard." Evidently my speeding tickets and my crash don't disqualify me from driving civilians around. I didn't really envision that this day would come. Now the joke is on me and I don't know what the fuck to do.

Take the job, Andretti!

The radio says Kenny Loggins is playing at one of the casino ballrooms. I have tried, but I cannot escape the savagely humiliating recollection that when I stood trembling over the phone about thirty years ago, trying to screw up my courage to call and ask Jane Z. for a date, the first time I had ever done such a thing, I gave myself strength with the words to Kenny Loggins' staggeringly insipid song "This Is It."
Oh yes, this is it.
Make no mistake where you are.
Your back's to the corner.
Until it's over and done.
One way or the other.
God, what a towering dork. I deserve to be a car salesman.

What a liar! I worshipped him in high school after he stood up on a table in the lunchroom with a guitar and a pig nose amp and played Devo's Mongoloid - I think it was Mongoloid. The principal pulled up a chair, wrote up a detention slip and waited. Johnny screamed, "YOU WANT MY AUTOGRAPH?" The principal nodded and carted him off, trying to squelch his own laughter. That might've been November, 1978 and it was the bravest thing I'd seen another kid do. Now, of course, he'd be shipped off to kiddie jail for having a sense of humor. In any case, our little fashionplate was no coward.

I had so many dreams when I was young. In most of them I was naked in a crowded room. Now, mercifully, I am dreamless. I want nothing. I am content to be a no-hit wonder.

He's a little queeny today, so pretend not to notice. It'll just encourage him. About going to court two months ago:

I was wrong. There is one thing I don't like here. The juniper is blooming and half of Santa Fe is in allergy agony. Still worth it, though.

Due to bureaucratic incompetence, I had to back to court two more times. I was starting to run out of suits to wear. Some would consider a Nehru suit and two-tone shoes a little garish for court. Fuck them. I was waiting on one of my visits for some paperwork and I overheard a public defender telling a kid in a track suit that yes, the cops did have the right to search his vehicle if when he rolled down the window, pot smoke came pouring out, and if they could see a bag of weed on the passenger seat. He said it's hard enough to be a black man on the roads, in the future, smoke your weed, then get in the car, and put the bag of weed under the seat. Speaking of which, I've started listening to the Albuquerque hip-hop station, just for a change of pace. There are some great lyricists on there.

I'm in love with a stripper
She poppin', she rollin', she rollin'
She climbin' that pole, and
I'm in love with a stripper
She trickin', she playin', she playin'
I ain't goin' nowhere, girl, I'm stayin'

On a whiter note, this weekend I'm going to burn some Lyres music for you. I don't know if it will do anything for you, but after all this time I still listen to it and think how can people think of music this good. Damn, or, as they say on the radio, day-um.

The Lyres. I wracked my brain. Did one of us date, you know, the band, get tanked with the band or did we hear it on the radio?

This time, we heard it on the radio.