start fresh, start fresh.
the three most interesting thoughts i had in the past two days were:
meditating with your eyes open is completely different for meditating with your eyes shut.
theres a fine line between being generous with your audience and not revealing everything.
lightsabers are too violent a weapon for the jedi philosophy.

tonight we open. so nervous shaking cold hands. no piano to hide behind, no no, instead i am right out there...i just have to remember to lose control. the dancing, remember the dancing...the only people who look bad on a dance floor are the people half dancing. the other half thinking...o wretched thought leave my mind for tonight, for tomorrow night, for seven nights hence...let me just be in this body and shake in a delirious whirl. i dont think when i laugh, i dont think when i laugh.

a joy these last few weeks has been rebuilding an old piano. its good to be with the hands again, creating with solid objects, practical, working, not this ethereal creative crap of my day to day. here is sound with elmers carpenter glue and particular screwdrivers and *parts* ordered from a special website (ips, go and feel the back of a scifi pulp glee of a boy in the fifties), parts that come special delivery, oh mailday bliss oh, and such beautiful names: backcheck, jack, flange, punchings, bushings, action felt. the action: the entire inside of the piano, the wriggly wood combo that connects key to string, times 88, is all called the action, the action. action felt, yes it is. and i repairing, regulating, soon to tune and voice as well, these small meticulous tasks tingle from fingertip to lip to slip deep within and counter the wild leaf blown world on the surface, where all is blown into a delirious and borderless leaving me reeling, groundless skyless heartless clueless. thank you these simple moving parts who ground me with their physical logic.

today while placing a screw small in a place smaller i saw my grandfather grin back at me from the within the row of hammer shanks that are the pillars of the piano actions architecture; there his face roaming the single alleys of doweled wood, his head floating through and smiling at my clumsy fingers, fingers supple to ease the art out of this instrument but nevertheless too fat when dealing with the small crevices between damper spoons and flanges. i think he gets it, i think he really does; that all this above the wood is whirl and curl and just so much wind...my heart may pound furiously in the midst, but all that passion and stress in the end is over air, timeshadows though an ever moving sunbeam gone so soon...rn reminded me after our understudy crisis in 'cabaret' that our profession, the theater, is so bizarre in its hyperbole; its a fucking play. its a fucking play, its a fucking song - - and then: its a fucking feeling, its a fucking heart. its not the ground beneath my feet, the wood and felt and brass and strings wound tight held together with screws too small and elmers carpenter glue too rich.

the actions that i perform are truth; they are what i do, and what i do is who i am. the action is the inside of the piano, its the diamond not the box. action, act; ive been acting, so strange; its causing me to lose my sense of truth. which is dangerous for an artist, where the subjective truth is the only objective ground one can count on; so much truer to me always has been "this song is right" than anything else true untrue. yesterday i was on the phone with a lady/wall trying to get a credit card charge reversed (the free trial for "entertainment rewards" coming back to haunt me. though i did get a free ticketmaster ticket out of it) and i decided to act kind of crazy. ive done that before. but if im acting crazy, im crazy. if im conscious of my actions, am i acting? is that all it is? is it only acting if its not true, or only not true if its acting? but now leaves blowing detour whirlwind are a bit much sometimes, there is something in my eyes, i cant see myself,

science math and physics, elmersglue, thats true, its true. so just hold on to that, and let the rest fall where it may. i think ive learned in my old age (the third decade has caused many changes in me, amongst them purchase of health insurance and a vacuum cleaner) to stop trying to force truth; if its there it will and if not it will not. on the surface just simple wood felt brass glue hold it together hold it hold it together. layers of three a red onion gossamer peel around my egg hard boiled.

my heart is only so much, under the action a subsurface secret truth that even i am not allowed to know.

edison resisting the musical use of the phonograph;
the difficulty of seeing a single pixel of red light blink;
the lasting satisfaction of cherry tomato hidden in mashed potatoes;
the museum of sound.
poor horse, poor horse, im sorry poor horse. never again, ill never ride again.

i can call him up and tell him what i want!

Jesus.mp3

(first im gonna tell him, again, how i love glorious sound; the tambourine forever convulsing, the concertina and horns in stereo imperfect mirroring, the full stop || to announce the entrance of guitars. the church bells, and beautiful beautiful the one man who comes in wrong towards the end but everyone smiles through. thump thump hit your foot on the floor and all this worry goes away. and ry cooder isnt even really supposed to be cool, is he?)

am i sick? do i want to get well? is such a goal possible? i am goalless, theres just thump thump this beat, and merely attending to each new downbeat, thats what im going to do. after every hit of the drum there another one coming up. on it. right now im riding fast through midnight a slipper of ice, and the walls of night are a million cymbals suspended and waiting for my playful picket fence stick. im hitting more than ever...abandon the metaphor for a moment and revel in the quotidian count, ive got 7 plays lined up for the first 6 months of next year, and i am thrilled psychedelic sick about each and everyone. listen: a cabaret, a song played on a solo saxophone, a train to catch, a gun goes rooty toot toot, russian rock n roll beamed into outer space, prayer both silent and full, and finally a birth of light. i must be fucking crazy. i must be! am i sick? do i want to get well? these seven bursts of metal with wonderful souls talent so beautiful, none of them will be the single goal, each night will be another cymbal sizzle crash through starlit wind flying past me as im riding so recklessly down the hill, weaving past cars technicolor lit, and its going to blur in the speed to just one stream of light pouring out exhausted. i love the challenge, the sleepless push to hit every next note, keep playing, keep going, i want it.

i can call him up and tell him what i want!

do i want more than this? im making a living at it now. im paying the rent on these outbursts now; and the people are good, everyones mind is reeling in another way and i love the laughs each one gives me. how can i ever come close to knowing them all? is there room for me? do i want more than them? maybe, maybe. real success, that elusive flame of fame, ha ha my musical opening on broadway in 2007, my god, why not, why not. i can call him after all, and ask him for this, right? what i want. what i want.

when the whiskey veil wears away for just a second i look down at my hands and they are white knuckled for im freezing cold causing im going so fucking fast and i forgot my gloves or i lost them in a bar on mission street or in the bart station, but i cant go back because i jumped the gate, i jumped the gate again almost every day a bart train renegade heart racing fast everyday but i cant remember right now. i must be crazy. there are so many things to wrap your hands in anyway...and look at her with her mittens fingerless, and her with her hat fizz fuzz blue, and her with her legs i can see fishnet stockings, garter and all, under a wider fishnet hose, that lovely leg all wrapped twice. every woman around me wrapped up different and my fingers trembling no matter where or when for a little more warmth, a fabric new always, why? why? i must be crazy wanting that when ive already got those eyes to get so lost in that temperature vanishes like direction in the dark, floating through centigrade in a shivering sweat flawlessly true. i must be crazy, but i can ask him, what i want, what i want.

i dont want anything, i dont. god, please i dont. please let that be the truth. cause ill get so sad if i want it and dont have it and ive got so much right now that im almost blind. i can be what i want to be/i can choose whatever heaven grants. but i just want to be whatever heaven grants, any cymbal so bright and lovely to be seen when im riding fast like this, god its like a new moon gold in the sky! crash a cymbal that i want to hear ring clear, crash peel, i want to hear them PEEL!

and i fear the shallowness, maybe theres too much and im not there deep where i could be. theres someone ive known as long as possible in real pain and i cant understand it really, cause i felt real pain once and said never again? no, surely not? that was so little...
but solo now so: lo the cymbals,
only the cymbals and my bike out of control too fast, but god theyre so glorious shiny! ive been working on riding no handed so i can grab a stick in both hands and catch my ears in the nodes and hear a mountain range valley strange of waves in the cold night air.

one asked me, why do i perform? i cant answer you, i cant. i have no idea. its what im here to give? its just there and its beautiful and thats all i can do. maybe im doing too much? i can barely feel.

tomorrow ill make the drummer a vegetable lasagna in exchange for a haircut, god my hair is so long, its the only helmet ill wear. i know how to make a good vegetable lasagna; i just have to pick the right vegetables, and only a few, so that its about *mushrooms*, or its about *broccoli*, its about the *one* taste, dont lose it, dont lose it//

(but on cannery row hazel pours all the half drunk drinks into a single jug, and comes home with a wild punch maybe champagne spiked one night and fernet the next. one taste.
i have no idea what all of this tastes like,
i have no idea what god looks like,
i have no idea how there can be so many sounds in the universe that when i open my mouth next time ill sing one brand new song, once and only once always one note to the next never ending, never goal, just sound all the way SHHHOOM! to the end of the universe getting absorbed by all around it cymbalstars bursting and dying brand new)

well, well, well,
im almost home, solid ground. four days to the condor. far too much has happened, potential blogisodes lost to the parallels forever by my present universe letahrgy. yes, i slept in the hillside vineyards of cinque terre and thus missed the boat and spent the night in promenade carnival genoa, yes, i got into an absurd physical fight, all pulling and hip punching, with a turkish cab driver ("hippodrome, not hipotrom!"), culminating in a jury of turkish merchants and mutual flicks to the temple, "TEH!", yes, on sea days i watched four complete seasons of 'friends' and was just weepy giddy throughout. these things happened, and now i am those things. im really growing up.

what will happen next? i dont know. but it is sure to be

rome (& taormina)//two dueling images, filmfictions that prey on me:

1. the perfect murder, the suited man, shaved glass in the omelette. i believe this from alfred hitchcock presents. oh my, good evening.

2. the perfect outlaw, breaks the bottle over the bar and pours the whiskey down his raspy throat and stubbled neck. hoo-wee!, good night.

so, when i bottleopenerless attempt to open my big peroni in the park and the glass top breaks off (a-fucking-gain!), with possible whisper glass tendrils waiting gleaming terribly possibly within, well then what then do i then do?

ey?

istanbul//on the way hand, yes, i absolutely believe in the idea of life as art, of my every action and interaction and view of the world being the great living artwork that i spend my life creating. and thus so long as this piece is given my attention, concentration, my skill and love, my work towards mastery, then i am living the complete life, the life full and worthy. and my artistic endeavors, the silly songs and scattermess writings, are just a small part of this larger more important whole, my life, my god and love and child. this is the way hand, smiling and clear.

the other hand, is, such a raging jealousy everytime i read or see or hear something that ahs me to the core. and i want to do that! i want to do that! i want to do that! gallileo crying in the snow, this hurts so much. oh it does. it does! i want to write a novel, and have a platinum album, and make a series of internet sensation videos that get optioned by hbo. oh the fame and the quality are entangled, i know they are. i do, damn it, i do! oh hell! i do!

still, in istanbul we managed to get into a very posh club (having learned the hard way last time to avoid the nightclubs filled with prostitutes, unordered food {fruit, though, all delicous fruit!} and YTL40 drinks {$28ish}, closer to 100 should you buy one for the finebellied lady), in which we were originally refused entry because we were girlless. girl-less. three drinks and one horrendous turkish eighties cover band later (the slowest version of "blister in the sun" ever, with strange minor thirds in the happy melody. why, why?), we went back, and were unrecognized, and walked through confident and tall...then stopped half way in, but no, no, turkish girls, turkish girls told us to meet them here, young beautiful turkish girls, mira and sonya...here, at carvot, they told us to meet them...no, we dont have their number, they are up there, and we start to walk, and ok! go ahead! had ha! up four, five flights of stairs to the pulsing rooftop party with jamiriquoi (my band will be instantly spellable) videos projected on a screen against dark turkish sky. but thats not the music, the music is pure turkish, tambouras zinging and voices ayayayayayyaaaing over quarter tones triumphant. what a dance, and in the drunken darkness grabbing for a handful of spicy nuts accidentally grabbed a few shells and a butt from an ashtray. oh, terrible, terrible, wonderful craze and this music all around and people sitting raise their hands in the air and i realize i am in the midst of it, in the midst of one of those nights, where everything is interlocked tender. and finally clinches it is much much later on another roof i am brought to woolen warmth by mr bob dylan, oh you sweet you, anachronistic crooning "one more cup of coffee" of all things.

he gets me! he did it! i want to do that, i want to do that.

but on the cab ride home, i was the crooner. we are drunk and speeding and he doesnt speak a lick of english, and we not a lick or turkish, and so we are miming the cruise ship destination to our bedazzled cabbie. i swim airbutterfly! i toot airhorn! i aircast fish! all for him, and hes sir smiling crazy laughing and turns the music up as loud as possible and im drunk and gone and theres of course a doner in my hand. howling at the moon! the cabbie loves it, i love it. we are arting each other supreme.

arting each other supreme, that was the moment, that was the golden moment.

mr. dylan, did you ever do that? i mean, exactly that? precisely that ocombinationo of movement and sound? no, no of course not!
it was a hit, a real charttopper, the kids in my head were dancing smacking their dashboards to it all summer night long.

and so im okay, for today,

(oh but that thirst, that seldom acknowledged desert thirst.)

portifino//the boar is looking at me and breathing. burlap sides expanding. this is not a pig, it is a boar. it is burlap brown and its face horrendous. alien awful. we are staring at each other. staring. i have no idea what animals think like. it looks away, draws a circle in the dirt. rummages in some leaves, finds a wooden disk about the same size as the circle, moves it along with his snout. stares again. there it is. boar. it wants me to know about the circles, thats clear. and the circles rhyme. rhyme. oh yes the world rhymes! i rememeber.
boar, core, door, before.
a beast, a center, a change, a time...will i go like that?
theres more: pore, sore, soar, pour.

mustard makes her cry, the memory of her home mustard premortared makes her cry, and she rolls the r, crrrrry, so you feel it. her eyes black outlined, she draws on her eyes so i can see her seeing me.

the boar is a car with wash me on the windows. i go to pour sweet smelling soap water down its side, dripping into his pores which are golf hole huge when i become little. but my bucket is empty, and both ways are blocked; my bicycle is surrounded by bees, four of them, flying in and out of the frame silently. strange to not hear them, to only hear wind and her crying and the boars words in my head,
more, roar, four, gore.

what is this? what fantasy does this become? if i coax her crying to a lion roar, then may i pass? i dont want gore, no gore in my life.

theres a scratch on my leg.

taormina//cold blazing he is, frostbit boiling as he granites his gaze through the tour bus window, and of course to multiply his frustration the seat is there right at the window pane, and forward or behind the view is so cut, cutcut, and cut like his and unkindest cut with the frustrations of the job, feeling for the first time the bad boss feeling, the knowing of *i am right* over this boss who is not, this silly foolish man over man who does not deserve to be there, and this sole interaction, the previous nights events (a vindictive bass line, a critical comment, a smallizing meeting) pasted crude upon the possible italian beauty around and he is just raw, just dumb with anger and disdain, and all the morsels of the world lose their delight and see him in this state unsated to the land of darknod, sleep dead hate, the sun growling through the glass at just the wrong angle, how can the sun seem so ugly. this is the attitude of the approach, the space in which he approaches, taormina--

land of mcw's praise, holy culture radiant, and i know that i approach this place with the sacred ghosting that so much of this trip has had; for i am not the first fire, here, others have blazed these european paths, and i see these womens ghosts perfuming across the piazzas. god i want this subjective objective to end...but i am he, and they are she, and we twirl together through this space only, time irrelevant as i hop though the town that another woman so lovely so fine young traveled first, and hope i hope this ghostlight will beautify heal me...

and i want to believe that but dont--- that's critical here, i dont believe it, my whole bus drive from messina to taormina, sicily, i am bitter boy and every tune that ipod shuffler unto me is discredited under my headache bitter, and i am not buying it, i am ready for the bad days. some days i hate so much...its no use denying it, this is ahh i am, and they so stupid fill me with such rage and i unbuddhasize myself into such rage, so small my anger, so small a man i am in this mix, oh god you bastard you dave malloy bastard, and i am hate for this boss and this band and this life that makes me work when all i want is song wine and arms around me.

and so: heres the point: im committed to this bad feeing, i know ill have this bad day. and the bus drops us in taormina and the guests ask me silly and there the boring dancer asking me to sudden coffee and i am trapped and ugh my god this world and so own am i, my mind is convinced so low. i travel as a tour escort, pinned, a tattooed gecko on the wall, and i walk amidst tentacles and get out quick, rush ahead to the greek theater and there climb the stairs high up and sit in the bleachers and everyone looks small and pretty down there; and thats a little better.

and this is nice and lovely that i can sit quiet on their stair and the world calm of ease moment, but fundamentally i am still raw ajar boy, grr vinegar man, leave me far away.

thats when nature lady starts it really in. the map has two kinds of paths labelled: "archaeological ruins" and "natural beauty". i go for "natural beauty". which starts out pretty shit, a winding narrow sidewalkless road, killmecars whiz. grr! but, a respite at a cemetery, with the photos on the tombstones, old sicilians gazing blank into eternity, and then back to the road. mmm/grr. mmm, sure. but then: grr. im back to grr. fucking pebble, etc.

but only for a moment, because, hey hey. there. there, there! theres another off limit staircase!! oh, how lovely that my lifes author is working from a consistent symbol pool! this one leading down, down into overgrown green. im wearing pants and sandals, and the grass is dewy wet, so my toes get instant tickle. and this stair is crumbling, whole steps missing, just brown dirt, and the bushes are bigger and bigger and the prickers blocking my path require my careful thumb and forefinger attention. and my wet little toes, and the smells are everywhere, and my god look all around im in italy. im here. im right here right now. oh yes. and then from nowhere an elderly british couple appears, walking up, speaking cheery, and they warn me: wild hens. mmm.

and sure enough, wild hens. and im smiling in spite of myself. once again, my mind seems to have an infinite number of subsections, crisscrossing all dueling for eyesight supremacy. and so nice, for now the grumbler has lost and im healed.

hmm, mmm. thank god for mutable time after all.