Hey! Here's a post I started and didn't post.

That's usually the story. It was from November 30th. I took a train trip home to see my parents for a couple of days around Thanksgiving. Check me out, I even wrote some extemporaneous weird stuff on the train. Not too bad for just a stylus and some sleep deprivation:


Walking 'Round in Women's Underwearrrrr.

That headline is only funny if you sing it to the tune of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland".

Which brings me to this time of year again: The holidays. And I've said I wouldn't badmouth them, right? Ok. But I will think quietly to myself about badmouthing them.

Badmouth. What a word! I guess it goes along with goodfoot.


Things I've done in the past 11 days:

- Sighted David Gest* hanging out at a downtown hamburger joint's non-eventful bar at night, wearing his sunglasses

- Sighted David Gest** coming out of The Peabody at night, wearing his sunglasses

- Sighted David Gest on a box of cereal***

- Rode the City of New Orleans, train 59, south. Wrote this along the way:

train 59 to new orleans

i can ignore someone for 4.22 hours one way and 4.16 hours back again. and someone can ignore me the same amount of time.

i am the dumb one who sits on the train not in the seat number
but in the train number itself.
i am not the only one trying to sit in seat 59:
out of an entire empty car, a kid sits right next to me
all he has is a skateboard, backpack and CDs.

we all stood in the rain to board
instead of standing under the canopy
conductor asked why we were standing in rain 'like ducks'
i said 'we're standing in the rain like idiots'

you are sitting next to me on the train
you brought things to insulate yourself from me
i forgot to do that. i will forget next time, too.

i am in someone elses fugitive montage
i am the late one in the rain
you are sitting by me ignoring me
soaked

we have a lot in common.

i think i am that tree growing too close to the tracks,
stripped down and cleared now and then
i never grow back quite the same.

i didn't hear the question but I heard God answer:
'the foist thing you got to realize is that you lost. then, you go from there.'

God is a black man on a train
sitting directly behind me in an empty car
with only us three.
i am the one feigning sleep
i am the one thinking about derailment
i am the one who carries a germ from them to you

and the world outside blurs by
pink and yellow ransacked skeletons with rusty tin rooves as a hat

i can tell i'm almost home.

someone's meadow lark lemon basketball is floating alone in a greened over drainage ditch.
people live here, i forget that.

'attention all passengers. someone has lost a ring in the restroom. they laid it down beside the washbasin. it has no monetary value, only intrinsic or sentimental value. '
does anyone stop to think that if you find a ring on a train, someone knows you have it.

the signs outside say 'holy city': black guy with his baseball cap backwards is riding a horse down the frontage road between us and a trailer park. people fascinate me.

nearly h@me.

when two trains pass each other going different directions,
its hard to tell which one is moving faster
or if one has stopped moving at all.

home.






*"Al Green has filed a cease-and-desist order against his former producer David Gest - because Gest used his name to promote a Memphis, Tennessee, concert the soul legend never agreed to attend. The singer complains he first heard about December's charity gig, David Gest's All-Star Holiday Extravaganza last month and was furious to discover his name was already on the poster promoting the event, reports website Pagesix.Com.

JR Rich, head of publicity at Green's label, Blue Note Records, says, 'Al never agreed to do this. The point is that Al lives in Memphis. He doesn't want people to think he agreed to do this and then just didn't turn up. William Morris (Green's booking agent) has sent a cease-and-desist order to Gest.' Despite legal warnings from Green, adverts for Gest's gig still promise: 'Famed producer returns to work after a year and a half with concert featuring Al Green, The Doobie Brothers, Lou Rawls, Dionne Warwick, Mya, Crystal Gayle, Gloria Gaynor, Deborah Cox, and Topol Recreating Fiddler On The Roof.'" **

** David Gest is too much. If the Reverand Al Green can't trust him, then that's good enough for me. And poor Liza. Don't get me started.

***Not exactly true. But it could be his next big spooky PR thing.