Dear World

Another month has gone by.

Dear Alien,

"My bridges made a lovely blaze
I watched the flames grow higher.
And people came around for days
Just to see the fire.
And, I was oh, so satisfied
Until, alas, I learned
I was standing on the wrong side
Of the bridges I had burned."

Dear Alien,

His father was a redneck truck drive from Yorktown, Indiana who spent his later years sucking back Stroh's beer at the Dickey Mouse Tavern on Highway 32. He'd smoked Camel straights. And his steaks were eaten raw. But hamburgers were done well or not at all. Sent back. Back to a kitchen with Mama that sometimes had milk.

The house he remembered best... or most anyway... was dandelion-gone-to-seed yellow and damn big. Too big for his thinking now but not big enough for the child he'd meant to be. His side of town was what could have been called 'poor'. But only if followed by 'white trash'.

He went back and saw where the house used to be once. Found it gone. Replaced by years of thoughts of fleas on dogs and backyard pussy-willows gone soft and rich. The property bought out years ago by his old neighbors the Zebells for the expressed purpose of tearing down the melancholy structure to make way for their cotton-candy, candy-apple wagons used only in the warmer months for state fairs and pocket-lining. He had only rented.

Rented the times when the shine on his skin went unnoticed by him and the sun was a friend, not a threat. When spiders and sirens were somehow alike and the sharp, summer lightning spelled god.

There was no door through which to request intrusion now. No stairs to climb or remember to sweep. No backyard porch to stack dirty clothes on or jump off of to bravely show others your wings. Justly gone. Rubbed out of his eyes like a busy day.

His father's presence is everywhere still. Even here. Where nothing exists but gravel. It is here he returns like a bottle. It is here we discover him home.

Dear Alien,

Your television confuses me.

I tapped into the TV feed today because I wanted to hear more about the sad, regretful passing over of my good friend Gilligan. We knew each other from Studio 54 and ever since that unfortunate misunderstanding we had over who should wear the mylar, it's never been the same. But we've always had a deep, abiding respect for each other. (Though silver has always been a better color for me than for him.)

Anyway, I love watching the entertainment shows. There's always a strange familiarity hidden within the watching. The set - soooo blue and busy and flashy, their hosts - soooo white and busy and flashy, their text - soooo purple and busy and flashy. I always find a strange, cold comfort in the middle of the constant verbal assault and the total lack of news.

So, I'd just tapped into the feed when suddenly a bright flash appeared through the portal and distracted me from the screen. I kept looking outside for any sign of life but found nothing (as usual). I could still hear the entertainment program blasting in the background.

"It's sad when you think about it!" I heard the host shouting. "These people are soooo poor! And soooo black!"

I turned and looked at the screen and realized that this wasn't "Extra" at all. Apparently, I'd tapped into CNN's feed by mistake. I was watching Wolf Blitzer in "The Situation Room". And, evidently, the situation was how poor and black the new New Orleans evacuees were/are.

So...

I tried to listen but I couldn't.

Even though "The Situation Room" had the same blue set as "Entertainment Tonight" and touted the same purple prose of "Inside Edition", this host was soooo white that I knew it would blind me if I continued watching.

So I went back to humming Gilligan's favorite song : "My Buddy".

And went looking for that sign of life again.

I'll let you know when I find something.

Dear Alien,

Were I king of this world I'd see to it that everyone was required every morning to hold a mirror up to themselves and look deeply into their own and pronounce the thing that most disturbed them at that moment :

"People drive too slow."
"Average is the new stupid."
"I wake up hungry."
"My tits are too small."
"I never have money."
"I can't love Jesus enough."
"My mother thought I was better than this."
"Maroon 5 sucks."
"Happy people piss me off."
"My boy is a queer."
"Women are frightened of me."
"I'm allergic to dander."
"Paris Hilton."
"My father touches me."
"Work is my only refuge and I hate my job."
"Nobody uses wallpaper well anymore."
"All of HBO's good shows are starting to look alike."
"That rat bit me."
"I wish, I wish, I wish I were a fish..."

Then I'd make sure that everybody put the mirror down and went on with their lives. Then, long about 6pm, when it was time to go home, they'd stop what they were doing and change to a different house. In the morning, where a different mirror sat waiting to catch their purging spooge, they'd repeat the previous day's cathartica.
On and on it would go until the mirrors were full up and started to overflow. Then everybody would have to stop complaining because everybody would have to hear it all over again so everybody would decide to help everybody out with what it was that was bugging them until everybody just didn't have anything to bitch about anymore. And when that point was reached, I'd demand that everybody take the shared hit of 7 years of bad luck and break each mirror completely. Shattering it till it cut soul. Then they could go on and do whatever the hell it was they wanted to do with themselves before they started doing what somebody else probably had wanted them to do in the first place.
Such an ear-shattering cracking of unintended purpose is what I wait for somedays.
Other days I just butter my bread.

Dear Alien,

I was flying over the new New Orleans yesterday and thought at first that I'd taken a wrong turn and ended up over Venice, Italy. The streets were canals and there were people running around looking for something they weren't sure how they'd lost so suddenly. But they had.
I was just about to go down and see if I could help when this huge plane with a big, white man peeking out its window clipped me slightly and sent me spinning off in the direction of Memphis. So I swung by Graceland and bought a cookie.
Later I saw the white man from the plane on your tv sets. He was walking around in crisp clothes, freshly showered and smiling smugly. He hugged a crying girl and her mother and burbled platitudes and well-wishes. Then he left again.
Turns out he runs the place.
Right into the ground it would seem.

Dear Alien,

A friend once told me about a dream he had.
He was walking by some water when it suddenly came up over his head.
He tried to breathe but he couldn't.
At first he was frightened.
Then something told him to give in.
To relax.
To fight...not less...but in another way.
So he did.
Suddenly he grew gills.
And the sun looked different now.

Dear Alien,

I was alone.
And there were others.
Red lights, like slow-moving arteries made traffic difficult.
From that direction anyway.
There was no sun anymore.
Just its remains: a few clouds; puff-violets, sinking fast. Over with work now and looking forward to dinner.

It was a Time of wondering and haunts from Dead Heroes.
The Mail Carriers were killing themSelves and still the mail found you home.
Unfortunate absences proliferated.
As if playing catch-up for money.
And college girls sorted laundry on Saturday nights.
Alone.
Sometimes the Beat went on, endlessly unheard by Majority Rulers.
This was not a Time of Balance.
And those born under the sign of Libra moved elsewhere.

Nervous associations popped up nervously and this woman, like many others really, carrying two shopping bags from the grocery store and not much support in her heels, followed her thoughts downtown.
"I have Pepsi." She thought. "That always makes me feel better."

But these were the Times when a dust-bunny gathers on thoughts,
If you're thinking at all, which you are.
The Past was the Future and few understood what one must understand,
Or ignore, if you're wise.
So.
Pepsi or no.
No one spoke anymore.
Not really.
Though speaking would just fit the bill.

The priorities placed out of place, which confused, and brought great comprehension of little.
And no one to blame.
(That's the Killer, Miss Miller.)
That's the phone ringing suddenly.
Pulling you out.

These were the 90's advanced quite a while.
Overly prepared for its date.
Jumpy and scented.
Pulled together one last time for the approval of someone Else.
Or maybe just lonely.

One day hot. Next day not. Cold. Real Quick. Like a cleansing after a fire. Kinda dry. Now reeeal wet.
And cigarettes glance from the table in the corner of your eye.
Great camels, like cocks riding billboards in neon.
Electrical buzzing to light up your life.
Thanks for the buzz, and all that.
Half-hearted offerings permeated and beer will always be cheaper by the case.

"Runnin' black man.
Musta stole somethin'."

Walk on the green in the promise of summer.
Stop at the red in the rain.

Dear Alien,

I was once accused of having a "cozy universe".
We were having your typical conversation about the Light and the Dark and which would Win and how this Very Conversation wasn't happening anyway and how Ridiculous the Point was because of course there can never be a Victor in Light or Dark because it's always a question of Extremes and how it will Never Change but go on and on and on until we all drop dead of exhaustion and he said:

"You have a very cozy Universe."

I rather liked the appeal of that.
I don't know if "cozy" is the right word. But "supportive" works for me. As does the Universe. As do I. As do You.

Now.

Dear Alien,

Whenever I think about the war in Iraq I feel like something has been erased in my mind.

Dear Alien,

Dear Alien,

Today I heard Mary Hart interview Steven Cojo about his interview with Larry
King who told us about his interview with Dr. Phil who had just taped an interview
with Pat O’Brien.

So I saw a Talking Head talking to a Talking Head about talking with a Talking Head about speaking to a Talking Head-shrinker who’d talked to a Talking Head.

But nobody really said anything.

Chips?

Dear Alien,

So you know.
The Alien was born. He doesn’t know where. He’s still trying to figure out why.
He knows there are others like him. He just knows it. But he can’t find them.
And he’s been trying to for a very long time.

Throughout his travels he’s come upon several very strange and wonderful places.
One of his favorites was the evergreen planet where all things were in black and white and all the beings there wondered all the time what “green” meant. He couldn’t figure out how to tell them.

There was another place that was only two-dimensional. But the beings there were
surprisingly deep.

But his favorite place of all is a little planet way off the universal map that he happened upon when he was scouting for a place to take a quick pee. He saw a sparkling blue bauble and was immediately drawn to it.

“Maybe they’re there.” He thought to himself as he tucked his better part away.
“Maybe I’ll find me home.” He washed his hands and headed down to the solid parts.

Well, now that he’s been here awhile he realizes that it’s not where he really belongs.

And this makes him sad.

He loves the beings here more than any other place he’s ever been.
But he doesn’t fully get them.

So he writes to his people and tells them about these creatures.

Since he doesn’t know what his people are called, he simply writes : Dear Alien,...
Hoping against hope that someday, some year, some millenium, somehow, somewhere, somebody that’s just like him, will find one of his letters and write him back.

And maybe they’ll tell him where he needs to go.

But till then...

He’s staying right here.

Dear Alien,

I know a guy who needs to love and be loved and wants children and an OldpeoplegrowingoldtogetherNess.

He's looking for a
Heart-baring,
Hand-holding,
Silence-sharing,
Future-molding,
Neck-rubbing,
Bed-spooning,
Double-tubbing,
Ballad-crooning
Kiss my face when I'm not even in the room kind of person.

But he doesn't trust anybody who likes him.

But I like him.
And he trusts me.
So I don't get the disconnect.
"It's a head/heart thing." He tells me.
I don't understand what he means.

If the head controlled the heart, wouldn't our hearts stop beating when we get distracted?

Dear Alien,

In this our land of sad, untempered rage
We tip-toe like the Indian at night.
We sense the quiet danger of the age
So carry with us only what is Light.
We creep as creatures new to no restraint,
And hide before the Haunted-hunting Call.
(Which cuts the cloaked darkness like a Saint
Gone Made from fearful thinking of his fall.)
Fear's neither made of substance, nor of form,
Nor neither, too, contained in naught but air,
But someplace in-between. 'Tis eye and storm.
And so, like Man, convinced that It is there.

If tangled tangibilities could teach
Were they unbraided, sorted and laid-out,
What Truths (before unseen) would bless the eye?
What Knowledge gained? What Passion (drained of doubt)?
If God's pure Light and Nature's Denser Glow
were ready-made apparent, would we know?
This many-layered mask which hides our woe
Would drop away. Revealing Man below.

Dear Alien

I used to drink about five pots of coffee a day. Then one day I did some deep Hatha Yoga breathing (what little I could remember from my days of trying to attain the Christ Energy) and when I stopped the exercise I didn't drink coffee anymore.
Go figure.
But, then I was faced with a number of problems.
One: people don't like you as much when you drink tea. Tea is a pain in the collective ass. Librarians, teachers, wimps and sick people drink tea.
Two: Waiters HATE you. And it can be a real problem if you want to pop into some quaint, little cafe in the Pacific Nortwest for a nosh and a slurp with a friend who is in desperate need of attention because if she gets coffee and you get tea you're gonna have to wait a full fifteen minutes before the fucking water cools enough to drink without scalding your thin but somewhat sunsual lips. When it finally does cool down enough to drink it's time to go.
The third problem...the one I really couldn't work out is...it tastes gross.
I also cut down on my cigarette intake the day the tea drinking started. About ten a day. It's kinda funny to tell a non-smoker you're smoking ten cigarettes a day. They don't get it.
"Is that good?" They ask, meaning well, I'm sure.
Good?
It's fucking ASTOUNDING!
Then they smile.
And tell you: "That's good!"
And it's suddenly OK.

Why?

Dear Alien,

In the beginning god created man. Then, recognizing the error, he made woman. (Not from the rib of man as goes the popular notion, but more out of a need to cover his own ass.)
This god-notion said at the time that it wanted a manifestation of self-in-flesh-form but didn't quite grok with drag queens so, as a result, here we sit, quite convinced that we know what's what and that everything's in its proper place and the maid will, one day, spot that huge dustbunny in the corner and sweep it away.
In America, in the new millenium, in this our land of quiet desperation, we separate like lost mercury and curse ourselves soundly for our unnoticed blessings. Setting our foreheads sternly and frowning at the corners of our chapsticked lips we forcibly try to smile through our blind, sound-bitten eyes. It hurts to be us right now. Perhaps it always did. But not, I think, in the beginning. We hula-hoop through the circle of life, reaching for brass rings with greasy, fat-free fingers for some glimpse of love's prize. We are special. But still, we are no different.
And oh...how...we...hate. Teeth to bone and chewing at gristle we giggle and snicker at the lesser fed. Rewarding the biggest cannibal with knife and spoon. To cut and to lap as if actually hungry. But to be hungry is not to be gluttonous, to chew is not to bite, to savor is not to sustain and there just ain't enough meat and never has been. For we are insatiable.
And no matter how much we devour, expanding the middle to the detriment of the extreme, there's always room for an after-dinner mint.

Dear Alien,

I can remember when dinosaurs ran the take-out windows.
I would ride on their slippery backs as their big, flat, hulking feet merrily
rolled their way across this once-jungled land we’ve since conquered and call Home.
Then, one fiery morning, I looked around and all the dinosaurs were gone and I remember thinking, oh, they must be at lunch or something. I’ll see them later, probably.
But I didn’t.
They went away for a very, very, long, long time.
I knew one day I’d find them again and ride on their backs one more time
And here I am.
Only now, they seem to get fewer miles to the gallon.

Dear Alien,

I don't know about you, but I don't much care for weekends.
A mass energy shift occurs that makes it virtually impossible for me to observe you people without getting noticed.
During the week, it seems, everybody is all wrapped up in the racing of the rats and the such-like to espy my staring and note-taking.
On the weekends, especially near parks or recreational areas, people not only notice, they get a little creeped out.
Which explains why I remain at my computer on the weekends.
Waiting, like a greyhound, for the first bell-ringing chimes of your work week.
39 hours left.
And counting.

Dear Alien,

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, is the road to heaven paved with shitheels?
I only ask because lately, when people are really, really nice, I hear a little voice in the back of my head saying "Turn back...turn back...it's suicide."
Maybe it's because I'm famous now.

Dear Alien,

A friend once told me about a dream he had.
He was walking by some water when he fell in.
Instead of drowning, he suddenly grew gills.
And the sun looked different now.

Dear Alien,

Did you ever have that kind of day when your bones felt hollow and you wanted to keep something that wasn't yours?
Yeah.
We all go through shit like that.
When the days go by so slowly that you're taking it personally,
When you view other people's lives as answers waiting to happen to you,
When you catch sight of a freshly painted apartment with Spring windows so open to air that you'd like to live there instead,
When you smoke to get even with god,
When the light of day is as intrusive as a neighbor who never calls before coming by,
When the promise of sex licks its lips all around you but does not whet appetite,
When nothing you say or do or want or feel can be said or done or gotten or felt,
When time won't stop,
When you just can't dance and never could,
When a call from an old friend chews like old meat,
When the line you got in was NOT shorter,
When you cannot shrug off the lies of this life,
When you'd really rather be Madonna,
When you don't believe this one's for you,
When everything feels too important to be that important,
When the Mercedes won't start,
When the baby keeps crying,
When your favorite dress doesn't suit you,
When nachos make you angry,
When the trees are dusty,
When you don't give a simple shit about who died for your coffee beans,
When you wish you were older or smarter or better or richer or whiter or simpler or deeper or other take heart...

It could be worse...

You could be Florence Henderson.

Dear Alien,

We are a world completely dependent on something that does not exist. Outside OurSelves.
Yet, somehow, and for some inexplicable reason we continue to look for the answers outside our coooool Selves.
It's a Dependancy. It's an Addiction.
This...this Dependency...this...this Addiction...this...this hand-holding need to COPE with what we perceive to be unCOPEable drives us forward.
If not up.
It propels us. And...and lightens our load by taking Responsibility off our shoulders and placing it on any one of a million things in our past. Our parents, let's say. Or our First Grade Teacher, who (being the repressed soul that he or she was) did not understand the Purple Hippotomus (colored only slightly outside the lines), therein destroying any chance our poor "child" had of ever attaining true perfection in the Art World. (Therein sentencing us to a world of graphic design logos from Madison Avenue advertising agencies.)

Pity the poor hippo...

Dear Alien,

In these days when we eat, sleep, make love and consume each other at warp speed I wonder if I'd like to pre-determine the gender of my first child, simply because I could. (If I were going to assist someone in having a child. Which I'm not.)

In these days when HumanKind is completely unconvinced of having any responsibility for itself, thus giving birth to blind, stupid power. I wonder if I'll ever be Famous. (Which I am also not.)

In these days of symbols, secrets, disinformation, gender fuck, neo-dependency, pseudo sex, desperate loving, TV watching, clueless culture, ininspired breathing and insipid rules...I wonder what it'll be like later?

Do you know?

If you do, could you call me, please?

I'm listed.

But unpublished.

Dear Alien,

Hello...(tap, tap, tap)...hello? Er. Um. Is this thing on?

Dear Alien,

I knew something creepy was happening when all the cars started looking alike.