The Scuzzy Sons-of-Bitches Who Light Up My Life Part I: Mark Renton

Yesterday, I got to have a good, long Skype session with my friend Zach, a former KZSC comrade.  Our conversation, I am happy to report, was quite brilliant.  We discussed the rise and fall of Microsoft and Nintendo, the inferior design of Facebook, and Yahoo’s inability to even try to compete with The Google Overlords.  During a brief moment of non-internet related banter, Zach mentioned that he was planning on teaching himself how to play the accordion.  I said that I could imagine him playing at The Poet And The Patriot; a bar in downtown Santa Cruz that only serves the finest beers and the cheapest wines.  We then got to talking about how fantastic it is to sit at the bar at The Poet and watch the frat boys and sorority girls order shorts of Jaeger and Patron, only to be turned down by the hard-assed, Irish bartenders.  ”It helps keep out the riff-raff,” said Zach.  ”If they want that shit, they can go to The Red.”

The Red is as trendy as it gets when it comes to downtown Santa Cruz drinking establishments.  There are drinks with funny names, or “signature cocktails,” if you prefer.  The girls are wearin’ mini-skirts, and everyone looks like they’ve showered.  The place smells of cologne and sugar cane, and it’s impossible for bums to sneak inside.  Despite all this, I could still walk in wearing jeans and a t-shirt and no one would glare at me.

There is a lower-level of The Red that is quite unlike its upstairs counterpart.  The lower-level allows smoking.  The lower-level isn’t as well-lit.  The lower-level isn’t the place to go for a neon pink “signature cocktail.”  The lower-level attracts girls in mini-skirts with tattoos on their arms.  The lower-level…just…feels more like home.  I used to hang out at the lower Red with my good friend, Ellanee, when we were in college.  We’d stay until closing time, having a blast being total assholes to all the poor fuckers who offered to buy us drinks.

“Ya know what I always loved?” I said to Zach, “The lower-Red.  It’s scuzzier.”  Zach laughed and said, “You would like the lower-Red, you classy, classy lady.”  I knew he was being ironic, which I found rather funny.  I also found it a bit perplexing.  In what ways, I wondered, am I not perfectly classy?  I burp in front of people, and I don’t give a shit if I’m caught grocery shopping in my pajama bottoms, but I don’t consider myself especially unclassy.  I had to settle this.  I said to Zach, “You know what?  It’s because I’m too much of a chicken to actually be scuzzy, so I’m attracted to people who really are.  I live vicariously.  It’s like I’m Lawrence Ferlinghetti and I’m just chillin’ watching all the Neil Cassadys run around.  They’ll all die, and I’ll be an old person riding my bike to my prestigious bookstore.”  Zach just laughed and said, “Imagining you as an old lady on a bike is funny.”

***

Scuzzy people.  Scuzzy fuckin’ low-life people.  I love them; especially, you guessed it, the males.  Yes, I am a Good Girl who loves Bad Fuckin’ Boys.  Not just any bad boy, mind you.  I’m talkin’ vagabonds.  Drifters.  Rockstars.  DIRTY HIPPIES!  The poets, the painters, the shitty novelists, the song-writers, the filmmakers…All that bullshit.  I love ‘em stoned, I love ‘em drunk, I love ‘em strung out in the street quoting T.S. Eliot.  I love ‘em in torn clothing with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths and knowing smirks on their lips.  I love five o’clock shadows and dirty coats that smell like bourbon and old shoes.  I love long hair and bare feet and sage-scented panchos.  I love paint-covered hands.  I love foul mouths.  I love bar fights and run-ins with the police.

Oh, how we danced away all of the lights, We’ve always been out of our minds…

I know, of course, deep-down, that I could never ever have a meaningful romantic relationship with a scuzzy son-of-a-bitch.  I know that.  I really, really do.  However, until I find my sensitive, loyal, well-mannered family man who makes six (or more) figures per year, I plan on continuing to fall in love with all the wrong men — at least the ones I see on the silver screen and hear on my shitty speakers.

I am not sure what my love for scuzzy men means.  Is it purely voyeuristic?  And why?  Am I rebelling against my suburban upbringing by idolizing vagrants?  Do I think that I have the power to take a starving artist and transform him into a well-to-do member of society?  Do I just wish Nick Cave’s “Hard On For Love” were about me?  Is this my specific take on penis envy?  Again, I am not sure.  All I know is that pictures of young Marlon Brando are great, but stories about young Marlon Brando living in his dirty New York apartment with a pet raccoon excite me even more.  I can’t explain it; I can only explore it.

Let the exploration begin!

SCUZZY SON-OF-A-BITCH #1:

Mark Renton

The Derelict That Started It All

(2002)

Those skin-tight jeans.  Those red Adidas.  That thick Scottish brogue.  That foul mouth.  Yes, Mark Renton is definitely my kind of sexy motherfucker.   Add to the mix a debilitating heroin addiction, and I’m in Good Girl Heaven.

My friend, Melanie, and I fell in love with Ewan McGregor via Moulin Rouge!  It wasn’t long before we had the damn movie memorized (including the u2/KISS/David Bowie mash-ups) and were desperate to see more of Ewan McGregor’s work; I have no idea why we chose to watch Trainspotting after months of  singing along to the “Elephant Love Medley.”

It was a Sunday afternoon.  I was 14-years-old.  When I saw Mark Renton overdose on heroin and sink into The Mother Superior’s living room floor while Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” oozed through the room, everything suddenly made sense.  ”This is it,” I realized.  ”I’ve always loved this stuff, and I’ve never known it.”

 NOTHING was the same for me after that.  Eve6 and Blink 182 and Dave Matthews Band were replaced by Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie.  If a book involved heroin, I had to read it.  My poor mother had to listen to Nevermind The Bollocks everyday as she drove me home from school.  I found a dusty old copy of Naked Lunch on my parents’ bookshelf.  Everything that came out of the UK was kickass, and everyone who made music in the 1970′s was a God.

Conversely, everything that was popular sucked.  It sucked hard, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

Thanks to that period of my life, I own way too many obscure Ewan McGregor movies on VHS (if anyone would like to join me to watch Lipstick On Your Collar or Scarlet & Black, please let me know), way too many books about punk rock (still haven’t read Lipstick Traces), and way too many copies of The Velvet Underground & Nico (CD, vinyl, two-disc remastered, burned copy of the two-disc remastered…).  Clutter aside, when I think about what may have happened to me if I had never fallen in lust with a fictional drug addict, I get very Existential.  For example, if I hadn’t fallen in love with Mark Renton, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with old music, and if I hadn’t fallen in love with old music I wouldn’t have fallen in love with old records, and if I hadn’t fallen in love with old records I wouldn’t have fallen in love with Jim Morrison (MORE ON HIM LATER), and if I hadn’t fallen in love with Jim Morrison…Would I have gone to UC Santa Cruz?  Would I have had my own radio show?  Would I have met half the people I consider my friends?  Would I have seen Patti Smith live?

Would I be into GAGA?

Life is just extraordinary, isn’t it?  If it hadn’t been for a little crush on an actor that turned into a tremendous fascination with various human subcultures…I mean, there’s nothing else I can possibly say, really.  I can’t possibly add more profundity by writing a few more measly words, can I?

How about this: thanks, Mark Renton, for being so Goddamn tragic.  And HOT.

Google Search III

Google Search II P.S.

I mean, I'd click on this. Wouldn't you?

Google Search II

Rain Dogs

I went for a walk this evening after burning a few CDs for my younger brother, Michael.  He had to drive to Hollywood for his weekly acting class, and he wanted some Pogues albums for the road.  Hollywood is only 30 miles away, but the trip can take two hours if you leave at the wrong time.  (Remind me why Carmageddon got so much publicity?)  I gave him The Pogues’ sophomore album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, as well as their first album, Red Roses For Me.  He had requested those two — he’s been on a Pogues kick ever since he found my dad’s copy of The Best of The Pogues on the CD shelf behind the bar in the family room.  The third CD I burned him was a copy of a playlist I recently made, which goes like this:

Rain Dogs — Tom Waits

Stagger Lee — Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

Bowery Blues — Jack Kerouac

Dharma Brains — Foxygen

Hard On For Love — Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

The Shower — Charles Bukowski

Tom Traubert’s Blues — Tom Waits

It’s A Motherfucker — Eels

The Moon Her Majesty — Jack Kerouac

The Stranger Song  — Leonard Cohen

Map — Jason Webley

Whiskey, Mystics, And Men — The Doors

Scum — Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

Honey In The Hair — Blackbird Raum

Broken Cup — Jason Webley

Children’s Story — Tom Waits

Desperadoes Under The Eaves — Warren Zevon

Last Song — Jason Webley

Readings From On The Road & Visions of Cody — Jack Kerouac

Anywhere I Lay My Head — Tom Waits

Looking at the list all typed out makes me smile.  Honestly, it looks Just Like a typical hour of “Dancing Barefoot,” my old radio show on KZSC Santa Cruz.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I once did play “Tom Traubert’s Blues” followed by “It’s A Motherfucker.”

What’d I call the playlist?  “Rain Dogs,” of course.  I get a real “Rain Dogs” vibe from all of these songs — vagabonds wandering city streets and all that.

I left for my walk at the same time Mike left for his class.  I decided to go ahead and listen to my playlist to see if it actually worked as well as I thought it did.  I walked up my street and around the corner, which takes you down a long hill that leads to Kanan Road, a street that, by suburban terms, is loud and crowded.  Not crowded with people, of course — Kanan is crowded with SUVs and luxury autos and the occasional Prius.  Once you reach the strip mall with the Starbuck’s and the Ralph’s and the Carl’s Jr/Green Burrito, then yes, you see some people.  Mainly, Kanan is all hustle and bustle because it leads to the freeway.

I’m sure Walt Whitman could make it sound poetic; he’s dead, though.

During “Dharma Brains,” I turned onto a cul-de-sac, and after about one minute I started hearing this weird click-clacking sound that I knew wasn’t part of the song.  (I should know, for it is one of my favorite songs.  For serious.)  At first I thought it was due to my headphones being old and shitty, but after a few minutes, I felt that familiar “I think someone’s behind me” vibe.  I turned, and there were two 14(ish)-year-old boys walking behind me.  They didn’t scare me, but the sight of them definitely startled me.  I smiled at them, and then when I turned back around I saw a white plastic spoon land in front of my feet.  I turned around again, and, low-and-behold, the boys had run away.

The little jerks had thrown a spoon at me.

I laughed to myself and kept walking.

I thought about when I was in middle school and used to wander the same exact streets doing stupid things.   I used to walk around with a friend of mine writing bizarre messages on notecards and taping them to people’s doors.  On one notecard we drew a picture of an alien with a word bubble coming out of its mouth that said, “Hmmm…bagels…interesting.”  It nearly killed me.  I thought that it was the most hilarious thing that ever appeared on paper.

When I came to the end of the cul-de-sac and turned onto the street, I saw The Little Jerks looking right at me, plastic spoons in hand, ready to open fire.  I stopped walking, took off my head phones, and said, “How ya doin?”

“Good,” said the smaller one.

“What’s goin’ on?” I asked.

“Nothin’,” said the smaller one, thus establishing himself as the dominant Little Jerk.

I decided to just be blunt with them in hopes that it would freak them out.  After all, my bluntness has scared away men in the past, even when I didn’t want it to.

“Are you gonna throw that spoon at me?” I asked.

“Maaaaaaaaybe,” said the smaller one, shit-eating grin plastered to his face.  I didn’t let it intimidate me.

“Well, please don’t.”

“Okay.”

I put my headphones back on, disappointed that The Little Jerks had made me miss the first half of “Hard On For Love.”  I started the song over, and after about thirty seconds I felt the “I think someone’s behind me” vibe once again.  I turned, and, sure enough, The Little Jerks were there.

I stopped walking and said, “Are you guys seriously gonna throw those spoons at me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

I spread my arms out, threw back my head, and said, “I’ll give you a free shot.  Go for it.”

Nothing happened.

I looked at them, and the dominant Little Jerk stepped forward, wound up, and threw his spoon.  He missed me by about 10 inches.  When the spoon landed on the sidewalk, I bent down and picked it up.  “Next?” I said.

The quiet Little Jerk missed me by about two feet.  I picked up his spoon, too.

“How old are you guys?”  I asked.

“Seventeen.”

“You’re seventeen?”

“Twenty-one!”

“Thirty-four!”

“Forty-seven!”

“Fourteen.”

Pause.

“You’re fourteen?”

“Maybe.”

They were pretty cute, really.  Still, I was done with their game.

“You guys should go do something else,” I said.

This seemed to confuse them.

“Can we have our spoons back?” asked the dominant Little Jerk.

“No,” I said.

The quiet one laughed.

“You guys go on home, now,” I said, shooing them away with my hands.

They turned away and took a few steps, and then turned around to see if I was still watching them; I was.  They took a few more steps, then turned again.  I was still there, waiting for them to walk away.

I watched them as they made their way back up the hill.  Every few seconds they’d turn around to look at me, or spin around pretending they were spinning around just for fun.  For a good three minutes I stood my ground, staring right back at The Little Jerks.  I never wavered.  I waited and waited and waited until they were far away, and then, when they disappeared and hid behind a tree, I waited some more.

Finally, I put my headphones back on and continued down the road.  I didn’t hit “Play” right away — I wanted to be able to hear The Little Jerks in case they came back with their spoons.

I made my way down Kanan, passed the Starbuck’s and the Ralph’s and the Carl’s Jr/Green Burrito, and as I turned to head up Thousand Oaks Boulevard and back to my neighborhood, I hit “Play.”  “Tom Traubert’s Blues” came on.  I listened to it once the whole way through, and then I thought to myself, “I wonder if I know all the words.”  I started the song over, and sang at the top of my lungs.

The Little Jerks never reappeared.  Maybe I really did scare them away with my confidence, or maybe they really did go home.  Maybe they found a different unsuspecting victim and lost two more precious spoons.  Regardless, I hope to Hell they have fun this summer.  I hope they ring a lot of stranger’s door bells and dial a lot of random numbers.  I hope they make a ton of noise inside of Rite Aid and get thrown out of Blockbuster for knocking movies off the shelves.  I hope they run home laughing their heads off after terrorizing some college kid who works at Baskin Robbins.  I hope they Double Dare each other to steal candy bars from CVS, and end up feeling twice the rush when they almost go through with it.  I hope they never forget this summer, and how badass they felt when that 24-year-old chick in the “Protect Our Oceans” t-shirt and ripped jeans threw her head back and said, “I’ll give you a free shot.”  Most of all, I hope they never forget how dorky and annoying and awkward and brilliant they were when they were fourteen-years-old — for they are Rain Dogs, too.

For Melanie, For Everything

My good friend Melanie turned another year older on June 8.  After her birthday dinner, I presented a belated birthday present to my friend Nicole, who had her birthday on May 11.

I’m a bit behind.  Just a bit.  Let it be known that I am not behind because I don’t care.  On the contrary, I’m behind because I care very, very much.

I first met Melanie in Miss Warren’s third grade class.  We were seven-years-old.  She was very skinny and had big, round glasses — I had totally excellent bangs and wore awkward Jockey sports bras.  Once, during a time when Melanie and I sat next to each other in class, I was reading my vocabulary sentences aloud to our table when, quite suddenly, an ENORMOUS SNOT BUBBLE came out of my nose.  I did my best to sniff it back in immediately, but it was too late — everyone at the table had seen the ENORMOUS SNOT BUBBLE come out of my nose.  Everyone laughed, myself included.  Embarrassed that I may still have snot in my nose, I held my vocabulary sentences in front of my face.  Melanie, without missing a beat (as usual), leaned right over to me and said, “Be careful, now, don’t get any snot on your homework!”

Hours later, Melanie acted as if nothing had happened.  We practiced writing paragraphs and multiplying by 4′s — the day went on like any other.  In fact, The ENORMOUS SNOT BUBBLE Incident was never brought up again.  She could have asked Miss Warren to give her a new seat — after all, there was no real explanation for my ENORMOUS SNOT BUBBLE, and there was no guarantee that this wouldn’t be a regular occurrence — but she didn’t.  She got over it.

It really wasn’t until 5th grade that Melanie and I became Partners In Lunacy.  With 5th grade came our love for writing silly songs (favorites such as “BFG,” “When The Sun Turns Grey (El Niño Returns From His Lair),” “Bakery Goodies (Have Faith in Your Mother)”…), the invention of The Butter Girls comic strip, our obsession with Billy Madison; the kinds of things that lasting friendships are made of.  The shenanigans were endless: we used to pass each other notes using her Merry-Go-Round pencil sharpener as a means of transporting and camouflaging our precious messages; during a week long rainstorm (which, actually, must have been El Niño), we spent every precious minute of recess time writing ridiculous stories on our classroom’s brand new iMacs; we were separated during an assembly because I made her laugh by whispering “Mouth-watering marshmallows” in her ear; during Outdoor Ed we stole a pair of our friend’s underwear and hung it from a rafter above our bunk beds.

Looking at the paragraph I just wrote, I realize that very little has changed.

Melanie and I have now been friends for 14 years.  A few things are different (she wears contacts and has traded in her skinny physique for a downright slammin’ bod), but we are still very much the same people we were when we first became friends — we make up songs, think up kickass ideas for comic strips, and obsess over silly movies.  Neither of us are too proud to own things such as pencil sharpeners shaped as Merry-Go-Rounds — in fact, I think I should go find some as soon as possible — and as far as stealing underwear for the sole purpose of having a good giggle fit, well, yeah, that sounds like us.  Most importantly, though, is that Melanie is still the kind of person who will be your friend even after she’s seen ENORMOUS SNOT BUBBLES come out of your nose.

So, Mel, happy belated birthday.  Part II of your birthday card begins NOW.

I couldn’t just buy you one.   Birthday cards don’t come with pictures like THESE:

RAWR.

On Tuesday, I decided that I finally had the time to assemble your gift.  I went to the mall in search of a cute journal.  Yes, a cute journal.  I had originally planned on decorating a journal for you.  That is not what I ended up doing.

I hate the mall parking lot.  It’s full of SUVs with old Bush/Cheney stickers on them.  Parked next to me on Tuesday, however, was a BLUE CORVETTE!!!  It gave me a thrill.

I wonder what the geniuses behind Eiffel 65 are up to these days…

The first thing I did when I got to the mall was look inside Bath & Body Works to see how much they charge for bottles of Piña Colada Butt Lotion and jars of Nipple Butter.  Don’t ask.

NEXT, I went to a cute little crafty-ish store that just opened up.  They had a PERFECT journal that was just BEGGING to be ripped apart and glued back together again by moi.  Of course, it was for display only and there were no others like it.

I went to the outside shopping area to take the stairs back up to my car, and I saw THIS:

“Shop Irresponsibly SALE.”  Our country amazes me. Corporate Fat Cats have come up with a way of using The Recession to their advantage.  This ad says, “Yeah, we know you have no money…but we bet you just sit up all night dreaming of all the STUFF you could BUY if you had some, right?  Don’t you just wanna say, ‘Fuck it, I want sunglasses’?  Well just DO IT!  YES!  DO IT!  It’ll feel SO GOOD to be BAD!”  It reminds me of the kind of thing we would discuss while watching Easy Rider and drinking Lemon Drops.

As I was walking back to The Former Site of Sisley — because even though Sisley is gone I still only ever park there — I passed friggin’ Papyrus.  I thought, “Screw it.  Maybe they’ll have what I’m looking for.”  Dude, they didn’t.  I wasn’t going to buy a $30 leather-bound journal and then rip it apart and glue it back together.  I was about to leave when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of a BEAUTIFUL shade of blue.  I looked, and, oh yes, it was a journal!  Upon closer examination, I saw that it was a…

…TAYLOR SWIFT JOURNAL.  What?  She’s such a renowned writer she has her own line of journals?  Like Rachel Ray’s “EVOO?”  Or Emeril’s bottled “Essence?”  Ridiculous.

For a moment I considered buying it so I could rip it apart and glue it back together IRONICALLY.  Ultimately I decided I wouldn’t buy the journal because I never want Taylor Swift to see a single red cent of my hard earned money.  Shop responsibly, Steff.

Needless to say, I came home empty handed.  Well, not true — I did end up buying some underwear, because every damn pair I own has multiple holes.  It’s not as sexy as it sounds.

YESTERDAY, though, when I returned to the mall to purchase Piña Colada Butt Lotion and Nipple Butter (don’t ask — and yes, I’m very much making fun of Bath & Body Works), I decided that on the way home from the mall I would stop at Michael’s.  Ya know.  For craft stuff.

I wandered in-and-out of the brilliant stacks of picture frames giggling at plastic bananas, admiring the balsa wood, and never passing the cashier.  (Shameless Allen Ginsberg reference.)  I didn’t see a single journal.

And then I saw it.  I saw IT.  And I BOUGHT IT.  And I knew EXACTLY what I was going to do with IT.

I sped home, and when I got there I was pleasantly surprised to find that my most recent online purchase had arrived!  I now have THIS on VINYL!

As I listened with glee, I scoured the internet for pictures.  The RIGHT pictures for IT.  Quickly, I loaded them all on to a flash drive, jumped in the car, and sped to Kinko’s…or, ya know, FedEx, or whatever the Hell I’m supposed to call it.  As far as I’m concerned it’s a freaking Kinko’s.  Yes, I had to go there because no, I do not own a printer.  The printer is in Isla Vista.

THIS SIGN KILLED ME.

I giggled like a 13-year-old.  Seriously, they must have done this on purpose.  There’s no way I’m the only person who thinks this is funny.

I came home, put on Cry-Baby, and got to work.  First, I burned you a bunch of CDs.  Five CDs.  THEN, I got to work on IT.  Here is a sneak peak…

There you have it.  Your sneak peak of your belated birthday present.  Hope you’re getting excited.  Are you getting excited?  ’Cause I am excited.

Happy belated birthday, Melanie.  You are one of the most charming, funny, interesting, loving, loyal people I have ever known.   I love you to bits.  Here’s to 14 more kickass years.

That guy is so cute.  Whoever he is.

This Is What People Type Into Google When They Find My Blog.

So Gay.

This is a video of a little boy meeting a gay couple. His first gay couple. He doesn’t hide his surprise — he’s definitely bewildered by the whole thing. When he yells, “That means you MARRIED EACH OTHER?” he doesn’t do so in a way that suggests disgust — he’s actually kind of excited to see something so totally far out.

Once the idea of Two Husbands settles in his mind, though, what does he say? “That means you love each other.”

Yes. That’s what it means. It doesn’t mean, “That means you’re insane,” or “That means you’re perverts,” or “That means you’re going to try to get me to grow up to have a husband, too.”

The Conservative Right argues that gay marriage will impact our country’s children negatively — So And So Has Two Mommies will be read in preschool classes, which will OBVIOUSLY influence children to lead homosexual lifestyles. The entire country will go gay. People will be fornicating in the streets having really gay sex. It will all be really really gay.

Anyone with half a brain knows that that’s not going to happen if gay marriage becomes legal in all fifty states (we’ll probably have a Jewish female President before we see that, but hey). At any rate, if parents are concerned about how the whole thing may impact their kids, let’s start slow.  If reading So And So Has Two Mommies is too radical for now, so be it. These things take time.

What SHOULD we do? Instead of constantly repeating, “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” how about we keep it simple and borrow a line from this kid’s book? “Marriage is between two people who love each other.”  Maybe it shouldn’t even be a preschool teacher’s responsibility to tell them that.  Maybe that attitude should begin at home, huh?

That’s my piece. Good night, and good luck.

PUT DAT COOKIE DOWN! NOW!

Dorky Days!

Welcome.

Whoo-hoo!  I’m on WordPress!  Doesn’t everything look so much nicer?  I think it does.

Right.  I am no longer blogging on The Graduate.  It was fun, but I don’t identify with good ol’ Benjamin Braddock as much these days; I have a job.

Everything that was posted on The Graduate can be found here on Dorky Days.  All my posts were imported directly.  So that’s good.

Why “Dorky Days”?  

There is a book — a novel — called The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle.  It is about a hippie named Horse Badorties who lives in New York City.  To the reader, he has no job, no life, no direction, no this, no that, etc.  To HIM, he is a very busy, important man.  Think of The Dude, and then take away the White Russians and the car and replace them with bottled Piña Coladas and a stolen school bus.  You end up with Horse Badorties.

I first read this book during the summer between ninth and tenth grade.  I was fifteen-years-old.  The person who handed it to me?  The same person who turned me on to The Velvet Underground, and played me the second side of Lou Reed’s Berlin one Saturday afternoon; the same person who handed me a copy of Trainspotting and said, “Don’t tell mom.”

It was my dad.

I wonder if he instinctively knew that I’d go wild for The Fan Man.  Maybe he figured that my recent fascination with nostalgia was a good indication that I’d love Horse Badorties.  Whatever the reason, he handed me the book, I devoured it, and it has been a very important part of my life ever since.

I am all alone in my pad, man, my piled-up-to-the-ceiling-with-junk-pad.  Piled with sheet music, with piles of garbage bags bursting with rubbish and encrusted frying pans piled on the floor, embedded with unnameable flecks of putrified wretchedness in grease.  My pad, man, my own little Lower East Side Horse Badorties pad.

Horse Badorties spends a lot of time recruiting fifteen-year-old chicks to join The Love Chorus, a choir he instructs at St. Nancy’s Church. Horse Badorties is also very much sexually preoccupied with fifteen-year-old chicks.   He isn’t a pervert — he just likes ‘em that way.  In fact, I think that Horse Badorties just prefers to assume that every attractive woman he sees is fifteen-years-old.

Not a pervert.

The Super Hot Dog Mission of Horse Badorties, man, is slowly taking shape.  For an entire year, man, I have held the Love Chorus together, dragging the valuable precious contents of my body here every night for rehearsal, and now, man, we are almost ready for our first performance.  

Horse Badorties is dead set on making sure that The Love Chorus gets to perform a concert live on television.  This book has no real plot (fuck plot), but if any Hollywood asshole ever gets his hands on a copy of this book and decides to make a movie, I’d say that the bit about The Love Chorus going on TV would probably be distorted and exploited in all sorts of bullshit ways.  Anyway, our hero manages to tell the head of NBC about the concert.  How?  He’s Horse Badorties.

Horse Badorties may also be a drug dealer.  Well, I guess he pretty much is.  Throughout the book he makes phone calls to various people regarding recent shipments of “carrots,” or how he’ll be by later with the “Swiss Chard.”  He and a beautiful girl smoke “alphabets”…

All right.  I say I don’t identify with Benjamin Braddock anymore, and then I go on this long tangeant about a transient named Horse Badorties.  First of all, he isn’t a transient — by the end of the book he has four ”Horse Badorties pads.”  Second of all, I don’t identify with Horse Badorties, but I dig his dogma: every day is an adventure, nothing is that big of a deal, and every woman in the world is a beautiful fifteen-year-old chick with a voice like a lark.

There is nothing wrong with the book.  The book is perfect.  It’s hilarious and irreverent and unpredictable and unpretentious.  It’s about packing up your Horse Badorties satchel, getting on the subway, and seeing where the Hell the day takes you.  It’s about playing bizarre musical instruments with people on the street and making thousands of copies of rare sheet music.  It’s about freedom and love and hope and nirvana.

Sometimes, it’s also about loneliness.

So what the Hell is Dorky Day?  Once a month, Horse Badorties spends an entire day repeating the word “dorky” over and over.  Out loud.  This day is called “Dorky Day.”

Constant repetition of the word ‘dorky’ cleans out my consciousness, man, gets rid of all the rubble and cobwebs piled up there.  

Take that for what you will.

Enjoy.