rants n raves

by tom miller

 

 

11/15/98 - 1:27 P.M.

 

on weed, crab boy, mr. prolific and poetry

 

 

friday night, i was pretty drunk, but not drunk enough to go home with crab boy from jacksonville. he came bounding up with that same black leather baseball cap he wears every night, and i thought to myself, "gotta' be crabs in that hat."

 

"hey, baby." he walked up and placed his groin at mine. he ground it in there and had the look in his eyes one might see in the eyes of a wild cat on national geographic just before it's about to pounce on the helpless stray baby antelope.

 

i backed up.

 

"hi, crabs." (okay, actually i didn't say that.)

 

"hi," i said.

 

"you and me tonight. right?"

 

"we'll see," i said.

 

i got away from him and went home.

 

 

*****

 

 

saturday, i'm in the bar early for the gator game which we televise for the three people who want drinks at 12:30 in the afternoon. and who should walk in but mr. prolific.

 

"how'd it go with your guy last night?" i asked.

 

"i fucked him," he said. "i'm in love."

 

"love? you've got to be kidding me."

 

"no. he's perfect."

 

"but you go home with a new guy every night."

 

"i'm looking for a relationship," he said.

 

i wanted to laugh. the kind of laugh where projectiles of spit are involved.

 

 

*****

 

 

took a break to go over to the hempfest. the hempfest is an annual event held in the public downtown plaza. basically, it's a group of people who want to legalize pot for smoking, clothing, food, fuel, and medicine.

 

it was great this year because every initiative on the ballot passed by a margin of 2 to 1. not some of the initiatives, mind you, but EVERY one. in boxing, that's called a knockout. in baseball, that's called a shutout. i figure it for a smokeout at the hempfest.

 

anyway, i've hosted the thing for the last seven years. this year, i had to work, but i was able to go over and tell the city manager, wayne bowers, what an asshole he is.

 

see, he once tried to prevent us from holding our free speech event one year and we sued him and won. turns out it's unconstitutional to prevent citizens from assembling freely to exchange information. so ever since then, he's got a big hairy bug in his ass about it. one year, we had a turnout of about 200 people, and he approved 83 cops to monitor the event.

 

to put that in perspective, that's about the same deployment as you would have for a gator game with 50,000 drunk screaming fans.

 

it cost the gainesville taxpayers $23,000.

 

of course, we sued again. some of that suit still remains in the court system, so i'll not comment further on the details.

 

but you get my point then that bowers hates pot, hates our event, hates losing lawsuits, and has a big hairy bug in his asshole.

 

you get that, right?

 

we fucked him up good this year. we held the event on homecoming weekend, during the gator game.

 

he just hated that. he got so steamed up about it, the bug in his asshole popped out.

 

he issued a statement to the press about how he was going to recruit cops from stark and ocala to monitor us as we exchange ideas.

 

but our new police chief, don shinnamon, basically told him that wasn't going to be the case. he said he was going to deploy about 4 officers to hang out and protect us from ourselves. not 83, but 4. i requested and got a round of applause from the audience for the discretion of the officers and the chief. i think he's a pretty levelheaded guy.

 

chief shinnamon is a good cop.

 

the event went well. there were no deaths, no rapes, no riots.

 

 

*****

 

got back to the club and watched the gators pummel south carolina. i really could give half a shit about college ball, but when the gators win, the town gets happy. plus it gives all the drunken stupid frat idiots a place to go so i don't have to see them.

 

"what do you do?"

 

"i'm in college, dude, majoring in education. i'll be teaching your children one day."

 

"what kind of beer is that you're drinking?"

 

"miller. dude! it rocks!"

 

"what do you like to do?"

 

"fuck chicks. what else is there?"

 

"do you know who robert frost is?"

 

"was he in that rambo flick?"

 

"think the gators are going to win today?"

 

"woooo! eeeeeeeyow! woof. woof. woof. GATORS! YEAH! GATORS!"

 

"you're really a dumb fucking piece of shit, aren't you."

 

"yeeehaw. GATORS! yeah. yeah. woof. woof woof."

 

as my good friend, kurt lang used to say:

 

gainesville, florida. home of the fightin' gators and the brain institute.

 

 

*****

 

 

must have had about 20 beers. went out with my straight friend (from the red vintage convertible entry) to get sushi. it's our usual saturday night ritual. he loves the stuff and so do i. especially when it's accompanied by six or seven flasks of sake. now i'm pretty wasted at this point. i figure my reading at the art show tonight is going to be pretty good.

 

we go to the train depot and there's maybe thirty people. all the art was bad, except for one sculpture. it was an orb with a set of green legs in the lotus position. i liked it a lot.

 

"what do you think it means?" somebody asked me.

 

"it's an egg with legs, you dumb bitch."

 

yeah, the reading was going to be great.

 

 

*****

 

a young lady welcomed me and escorted me over to a corner where a band was setting up. she cautiously positioned the microphone and adjusted the settings.

 

"be careful," she said. "the p.a. is not very good. i don't want to blow it, so don't turn it up too loud."

 

"sure." i replied. and i thought, yeah. i'll be real quiet and tender. i'll softly and delicately read my little poems and everything will be okay.

 

then i turned it up.

 

"hello? hello? anyone here willing to show us their dick?"

 

the three or four people looked around. slowly, other people joined them. i read a poem and then more people came. some of them were daring enough to walk in front of me during my performance.

 

"hey, you. big boy! let's see your dick." he got out of my way. "what? no dick?" then to his girlfriend; "why do you hang out with that guy if he's got no dick? shit. i'll fuck you if you want some dick."

 

he didn't even put up a fight for her. he was scared of the raving drunken poet because the poet was armed. he had his microphone and the volume was maxed. can't fuck with it.

 

then i blew out the sound system and had to scream the last poem.

 

"i'm a dick sucker!" i shouted. "look mom, dad, i'm a dick sucker." i got in their faces. i got up their asses. i had their hearts in my cold blue hands.

 

"ladies and gentlemen, see the most terrifying horrible monster... only five dollars see the big yellow toothed frog monkey dick sucker! a creature so cold he didn't even go to his mother's funeral!"

 

and capped it with; "when we get done writing the world, let's tear it up and watch it burn!"

 

i dropped the mike on the floor. there was applause, compliments, adulation. i hate that stuff. i talk about dicks and cunts too much. i'm not a good poet. i'm in pain. they don't see it. to this day, i still get introduced as a comedian. one of these days, i'll get an m.c. around the neck and palmfist his nose into his fucking brains. then i'll look into his bloody face and say, "was that funny motherfucker?" drop his dead ass on the floor and use him for a stage.

 

i got out of there and headed for the "after hempfest" party at fort ganja.

 

 

*****

 

 

an old guy with a beard, certainly a nam veteran, was angry. the stoned hippies were trying to calm him down. i got a beer and sat next to him.

 

"how you doing," i asked.

 

"shitty!" he shouted. "shitty. the whole thing's fucked. fuck you all!"

 

"yeah," i said. "you get back after all that, and they shit on you."

 

"fuckin' A right!"

 

"they don't even say thank you."

 

"hell, fuck. that's the goddamn truth." he sat down.

 

"i hear you." i drank a sip of my beer and looked into the bonfire burning in the middle of a circle of drunk stoned chilled out people.

 

"shit." he said. he looked at me. his eyes were hard. he looked for a long time directly into me. i didn't break the stare. i kept my eyes focused on his and tried to imagine what it must have been like for him. i didn't even come close, i'm certain of that. you can't know a thing like that unless you live it.

 

then we both looked into the fire and he became silent.

 

 

*****

 

"you want some mushroom tea?" it was treetop. the national hollerin' champ. the guy can be heard six states away when he yodels and hollers.

 

treetop has a short beard with a strand of nappy hair that coalesces into beadwork. he's got a ratty mustache. he's got long hair and sort of tattered clothing. he gets laid more often than god, and by the prettiest women you can imagine. he's the friendliest man i've ever met.

 

"sure," i said. i walked with him over to a pot and he scooped out some of the mixture with a wooden spoon. it didn't taste off, like so many mushroom teas do. it was cold, but pleasant. i waited for the effects as i watched children at play and women talking to men and army buddies reflecting on old times. most either were smoking pot or had done so that evening. it was serene. the mosquitoes were graciously absent. these were peaceful people who enjoyed simple things in life. good food. good drink. good conversation. relationships based on communication. i tried to imagine a raid on this place. the cops had been here in force a couple of years ago, because they heard it was a haven for drugs and weapons. i tried to imagine what the children would do when the men in blue with their shields and guns stormed the property only to find a bag of pot and one private handgun, unloaded and properly stored.

 

like the mosquitoes, the cops were absent too. they were here earlier, but only two of them, and it was only to advise that the stereo be turned down, with a please and a thank you.

 

 

*****

 

 

i drank several more cups of the mushroom tea, but nothing ever did happen that night. maybe i was already there.

 

 

(tune in next week for the continuing adventures of tom miller and his world of the machine.)

 


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