Hamburger Valley, California

David McGimpsey

Hamburger Valley, California

Hamburger Valley, California

David McGimpsey ECW PRESS

Copyright © David McGimpsey, 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ecw press. national library of canada cataloguing in publication data McGimpsey, David 1962– Hamburger Valley, California “A misfit book.” isbn 1-55022-456-5 i. Title. ps8575.g48h35 2001 c811´.54 c00-933250-2 pr9199.3.m334h35 2001 Edited by Michael Holmes / a misFit book Cover and text design by Tania Craan Cover photo by Hulton Getty / Stone Text images by David McGimpsey Author photo by Lynn Crosbie Layout by Mary Bowness Printed by agmv Distributed in Canada by General Distribution Services, 325 Humber College Blvd., Toronto, ON, m9w 7c3 Published by ECW PRESS 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200 Toronto, ON m4e 1e2 ecwpress.com This book is set in Dom Casual and Sabon. PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

The publication of Hamburger Valley, California has been generously supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

Contents

1.

O Porco Mio 2 Ashley Peacock Rubber Room 3 nice at any price 5 Ancient Rock Mythology 6 “Let’s Hear It for Seasonal Affected Disorder!” 13 The Jenny Jones Show 14

Où Est Queen Street? 15 Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” by Frank Sinatra 21 Museum Sweet 24 As Seen on ER 27 The Ballad of Scatter, Elvis’s Pet Chimp 29 The Inaugural Poem of the Los Angeles Subway System 30

2.

Dr. Tubby 42 Alanis Glossettes 43 Air Lardo 44 Is It Any Wonder? 45 Mr. Baseball 46

Vili Fualaau à Paris 47

The Narcissus Bloat 48 Shake Hands with Oprah 49 Tubb E.’s in Love 50 Gnawed End Piece 51 Millennial Predictions 52 Big Pants on Campus 53 Thank God for TV 54 Lardcake III: The Wrath of Tubby 55 That’s New England to Me 56 More Millennial Predictions 57 Gravy-Boy 360° 58 Cali-Tiki 59 The West Wing-Ding 60 Fatlanta, GA 61 Secret Confessions of Jacques Cousteau 62 Poto-Tato 63 New Chunky McBeal 64 Dollar Store Blazon 65 Darva Conger’s Oscar Party 66 Evel Knievel Knoodle 67

3.

Hamburger Valley, California 69

to my sister Janice with love & respect

Acknowledgements: Some of these poems (or different forms of them) have appeared as an above/ground broadside and in Apollosenses, Canadian Literature, The Literary Review of Canada, Losers First (Black Moss Press), Mai Tai, Matrix, Oral Fixations (Second Room Press), and The Queen Street Quarterly. The poem Où Est Queen Street? quotes lyrics from the song Blemish Years by Jason Camlot (1995 Tonguespoon Music, used with permission). Also: grateful thanks to John Fraser for his keen wit and inspired indexes which I have used freely in the same poem. The quote “porkchops and applesauce” is taken from a famous episode of The Brady Bunch where Peter, unlike the speaker of the poem, is determined to improve his personality. The end of the Alice Cooper part of the poem Ancient Rock Mythology imitates/parodies Hardy’s “And starlight lit up my lonesomeness / When I set out for Lyonnesse / A hundred miles away”; the Ritchie Blackmore part imitates/parodies a phrase from Gaston Miron’s poem Monologues d’aliénation délirante: “le Grande Saint Catherine Street galope et claque.” Parodies of Frank Sinatra and Leonard Cohen in Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” by Frank Sinatra must be too obvious to mention. For The Ballad of Scatter a shout out to J. (bass) and Matthew Rosenberg (drums) of the rock band Puggy. Another to Jim Crosbie who joyously encouraged some of the song lyrics in this collection. The poem The Narcissus Bloat is dedicated to Susan Musgrave. I suppose the Millennial Predictions poems could best be seen as rejected matter for the “In the Year 2000” skits from NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien or, as rejected “Top Ten Lists” from CBS’s The Late Show

with David Letterman. Poto-Tato: cf. Shelley’s O World, O Life, O Time in addition to Four to Five Times by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. In the poem Hamburger Valley, California, the phrase “Santa Claus is Back in Town” is, of course, from Elvis’s version of Santa Claus is Back in Town; whereas the “Merry Presley, Baby” bit follows the tune to his Merry Christmas, Baby. The “With extra onion” section imitates/parodies The Rivieras song “The Warm California Sun.” A most appreciative thanks to Bruce McDonald who made a short film of “The Hamburger Song” for Bravo/Fact. The snapshots in this book, mostly of Los Angeles burger stands, were all taken with an old Fuji 35mm camera in the Fall of 1999 and the Spring of 2000. If I was an advertiser and I had to come up with ad slogans for toast, this is the best I could do: 1) Toast. Full of Toasty Goodness. 2) More than just a slightly darker piece of bread. 3) The Toaster — Not Just for Bathtub Suicides Anymore. 4) America’s Li’l Breakfast Pal. Grateful thanks to my publisher Jack David and to all the staff at ECW. Above and beyond thanks to my editor Michael Holmes. To Lynn Crosbie for the photograph and for a thousand truths. To Mike for thousands of miles of fun. Thanks to all friends and all my loving family — my amazing and always inspiring parents, John & Mary. To Carol, sunshine.

1

O Porco Mio How can I live knowing there’s a fish called crappie? How can I contemplate the spider’s delicate noose, the manta ray skimming the seafloor, the weed-eating goats, when Donny and Marie are yet once more on TV? I’m a little bit tubby, I’m a little bit unemployed, though there was the time I worked the photocopy stall on the unpopular side of the Riverside Mall and got canned (they say) “for making helicopter noises.” How could I go on without snooze button technology? Without the deep back-up of anti-stumble meds, just in case I ever want to step elegantly off a jet after counting the crests on the wide-like-me sea? I double cream, take out the instructions and sleep on my side — despite the whirly musics and the unsolid bits I may get to use the moneys from a prestigious scholarship to finance (I hope) the greatest Sasquatch hoax of our time.

2

Ashley Peacock Rubber Room The lover crashes through the room wearing plaid but avoiding other baked bean, East-end accents; bumps into a makeshift card table, provoking the scorn of players who’ve been all the way to Belgium and back; sees a local is holding a pair of sevens. That’s the way it is most of the time. The lover starts out ineffectually, all strange accelerations and unexplained floodings, umming and ahhing, misquoting old sources — even Canto III from The Rubicon of Omar Curtis Armstrong; but, used to using words like “gobstopper” and “brill,” the lover laments an elaborate pseudohistory, sharpens the cleaver, separates chuck from loin, hangs up his blood-smeared apron and halfheartedly defends the oeuvre of The Brat Pack; so, the Emilio Estevez pose. The lover isn’t practiced like a radio doctor but he imitates that tell it like it is lilt, talks with a slightly pressured tone, rushing out “last thoughts” as if at any minute the station will break for ads from a man who calls himself Crazy for fronting a company of mattress retailers and blender czars. The lover doesn’t act quickly but strangely thinks love spasmodic; moves like an overused human subject in edible-chemical tests, like one who’s spent days challenging molecules in a preservative found in radish-flavored chips

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sold only in Asian specialty shops. The lover believes in change and, therefore, is ultimately pro cult; powerless in the face of the cult’s understanding embrace of another world where babies do not cry out as they cart mother robots off to the robot colony. The lover asks the same questions, so often the words lose definition: dolphin assignation, forever science, rabbit flag, rocky incognito, tomato solstice. The lover becomes an assembly line — an assembly line in a hungry continent — cranking out electronic toys which dispense mild shocks, toys that may or may not be responsible for spreading a fatigue-related virus that only affects part-time University instructors (hence its colloquial name, “The Lucky Flu”). I love ya, says the lover through uncapped teeth, reedily, intimating the cuddly prerogatives of the marrying kind, aiming ready happys, breaking earth on his final de-pantsing ground. The lover chooses a burgundy: the one that goes best with chest pains, the one that compliments stuttering, the one that puts a fine leathery finish on a lifetime of fry. The doormat to the flat reads Welcome. The lover thinks of what it would be like to swallow origamied rsvps.

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nice at any price Liberace tamagotchi & Cindy Margolis’s old-fashioned poultice Linda Tripp’s licorice whip O Rebecca Romijn’s aspertame Slimming, slimming From Rita Wilson to Jonathan Taylor Thomas’s adventureland buy Wesley Snipes handiwipes & Ginger Lynn Allen’s home pregnancy challenge Geri Halliwell sings lovesongs from hell to Bill “The Tuna” Parcells peer through Vanna White’s color-adjusted Sky Light drive Anna Kournikova’s banana-hued Range Rover and fire up a Justin Timberlake rib-eye steak.

& Gwyneth Paltrow’s pin number is Ten Eight Four O to the Affleck-affected sexbank, the Pitt pit (the Carmen Electra perfecta?) where Debbie Matenopolous is no sadder than the rest of us maybe just a little, just a little less sunshine

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Ancient Rock Mythology I Alice Cooper at Thermopylae At a store that mostly sold winter shovels, a record bin. There lay ambition: switched pricetags and Alice Cooper’s School’s Out came home. Hoo-hoo. Camped out by a water-streaked console, more furniture than high fidelity, coffin-sized, still geared for 78 speed, parents’ Pete Seeger records tucked tight inside; turned on low, ear to the speaker, getting comfy, pushing it up, waiting-out the inevitable Will you turn that damn thing down? School’s Out had everything: loud guitars, praises of juvenile delinquency, lyrics about trading cigarettes for beer, street fight sound effects — cats’ claws, broken glass. And, the world’s greatest promotional item — the disc came wrapped in a white panty, a soft, elastic, waxy see-through piece. Whatever happened to the underwear? It was certainly too confusing to be thought of as just a rockin’ souvenir. On thin ice defending Alice Cooper, how would girls’ white frillies be explained to good people who listened to “Feelin’ Groovy”? A plastic stereo by luck of a birthday; locked in the room, volume creeping up, bangs on the door, battering, “Turn that down! Turn that down! I can’t hear myself think!” Never. And, in a way, that door was never opened,

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and the records spun my lonesomeness, staring at walls — bare (but black lighted).

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II Ritchie Blackmore and the Golden Fleece In a basement with faux-mahogany paneling, his brother’s precious records. Said Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple could actually make a guitar sing; “Child in Time” over and over, waiting on the transformation, his mother coming in and out, Eggo waffles and Ice Palace pop. Never heard the guitar vocalize but it was heavy. Not like Zep’s flamboyance, which was more about chicks, satin pants and chest hair. The Purples intimated the glamour of hotel-room hepatitis, gave birth to Fender Strat fantasies which would forever be balanced carefully by You suck sureties. Funky Claude c’est nous. Came through to early metal music pronunciations: where “stranger” was “strange-ahh” and “king” was “key-ay-ing.” A vital corporeal truth: if your ears didn’t ring for three full days it couldn’t have been much of a concert. Bootlegs titled Decibel Lords, Music to Make Your Ears Bleed, Unreasonably Loud and Deep Deafness. Blackmore solo, 1976, his elaborate light works fritz-out, delays the start of the show until 2 a.m.. More older brothers and sisters recognized, Tiffany Tavern regulars: “Whatcha doin here punk?

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You get tickets at the Forum, punk? You got anything with you, punk? Need us to getcha a beer, punk?” A February night at 4 a.m., car exhaust hugs the asphalt as a deep cold slaps back rasp and sweat; in a full gallop on grand St. Catherine Street just enough coin in pocket to buy a Sprite at Mr. Sub.

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III John Lennon and the Minotaur Bullish days and thick black smoke, a smack of honey bud, as if, as if, as if there was a chance (and High School might end). John Lennon singing Nietzsche-lite: as if he could proclaim the death of Elvis, as if he could navigate generational distrust, and encode all peer suspicion in Fuck you songs written to Paul McCartney. Through birthdays of beige corduroy and mumbling counselors who sat by the window, smiling at the mention of music lessons, their eyes on the mall across the highway where they took their afterschool pints. Called to sacrifice teen angers to some college-bound code of maturity, we refused. Giving up on normal, we did the most normal things: a matinee of the Jaws-ripoff Grizzly, a tequila bottle dropped in Rossini’s Pizza. Nickels and dimes to plug the box, lyric sheets to memorize. Rock music the centerpiece of any life choice, the only hope for change: a new album nuanced where you wanted to go, what society you hoped to leave. As you could escape the prisons of BTO and Styx so might you find your way through the hallways, by the likes of Plastic Ono and / or an Inuit-carved toke-stone. The long wait for income-adjusters and oncologists underscored by a thousand dopey dead ends; warming to bright island music when any ukulele would do.

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IV Curse on the House of Aerosmith Sometime after ABBA called it quits, they say Agnetha became reclusive; long walks around the parklands of Stockholm — no interviews please. But even when “Waterloo” and “Chiquitita” raved the jean jacket set, the partyers, had rigorous laws: Disco sucks, man. Barry Manilow? Gay. Disco sucks, man. ABBA? Gay. Black Oak Arkansas, on the other hand, was worthy of heavy investment: get to the concert early to beat the festival seating rush and only a hundred people show, partyers all. Jim Dandy shakes every hand like a well-bred Southern Democrat and puffs-up on stage. It was routine, it was work: an Emerson Lake and Palmer summer concert with a symphony orchestra that went on strike, Pink Floyd with a giant inflatable pig that did not inflate, Peter Frampton with hair that crossed Louis Quatorze with Cheryl Ladd; and, of course, Thin Lizzy and the riff in “The Boys Are Back in Town.” Even Rush, Max Webster, ZZ Top and Argent served their purpose, remaining undanceable and repulsive to girls. Why hurry? Could such rock-ready geeks, what with their taste for instant mashed potatoes, really smoke their way through? Come on. Would they ever be the ones to sit high as a Trump, gored by pinot noire and West Side quacks?

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It must have been ripening wisdom (or is that “aging out of the demographic”?), and it certainly was Aerosmith who ended the rock concert streak; the Toys in the Attic Aerosmith, the Aerosmith on cocaine Aerosmith. A big, bright stage show; a wall of flood lights pulses out the letter “A” and winds down behind the band like a rusty ferris wheel at the county fair. Straddling the backs of chairs, straining to see over wicked heads of hair, the repetitive right-on fist pumps, rocking a whole row. It was glorious, it was a bore. It was long before retro disco parties around tasteful kitchens, where reformed partyers danced to “Mama Mia” in-between conversations which start out “So, what do you do?” It was long before Aerosmith’s post-ironic durability as awards show entertainment. Decreed a smoky cul-de-sac for “Yeah, man” sayers, the rock show became another “never again” thing, as if one could manage destiny by such a choice — but now, what do I do? Bounce fabric softener has brought increased happiness and Agnetha Fältskog walks alone.

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“Let’s Hear It for Seasonal Affected Disorder! ” Try to stay on the happy side Even when the cable goes out And you can’t receive subliminal satanic messages From Entertainment Tonight’s Julie Moran And when the snow is falling And the Santas have gotten into the gin And carollers start singing about a yulelog Hidden in their pants (chorus) Let’s hear it for Seasonal Affected Disorder Being depressed as a Finnish grunge band Let’s hear it for Seasonal Affected Disorder My little Christmas friend O you can try to keep your spirits up Because somewhere people are smiling And God invented a little thing Called 2-for-1 Tequila shooters And if you ask for an authentic Willie Nelson dining set And all you get is a test sample of Hai Karate cologne You don’t have to increase the lithium You are not alone Let’s hear it for Seasonal Affected Disorder Putting Kentucky Fried Chicken on your speed dial Let’s hear it for Seasonal Affected Disorder That’s my li’l Christmas pal

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The Jenny Jones Show Philadelphia. The Jenny Jones Show is on the tube, sound turned off for the bar’s “Irish Jam Night,” guys in beards on mandolin and out-of-tune fiddles; they forget verses, mix heathers with vales. Club-girls in spaghetti-strap tops come in, pause, realize, however exhausted, Jam Night’s no place to be. One knocks over a suit of armor by the door; before the bar became The Blarney Stone it was The Galleon, and, among all the new tea towels, pirate-themed junk abounds. Ahr-har. On Jenny, mothers confront daughters about trashy clothes. It’s late August and, deep into the swell of summer, they say “Seattle-strength” protesters are due to arrive, ready to bash in McDonald’s and the Gap. Jenny, “It’s just a sin how much skin they’re in.”

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Où Est Queen Street? After looking at a drawing I diligently copied from a Time-Life book on psychology (with added freaky green and yellow swirls), my caring grade 9 art teacher said, “I hope one day you’ll wake up from your living nightmare.” Guess it was a mistake to have called her a “crazed old bat” in front of everyone, esp. while the class was patiently dedicated to continuing its macaroni salute to Canadian National Unity. Quebec On Vous Aimes. Ensemble Nous Restons Fort. She took off her glasses, said it was okay with her if I just spent classtime in the library. Saying it was okay if you spent classtime in the library was how caring High School teachers said, “You are dead to me.” Most good art books had been stolen by then, and, turns out, there’s only so much even a teenager can sleep. But, O, there was always the art of the ditch, the backwoods that spilled away — away from the meal plan cheese sands — through gray nettles, dwarf wildflower, grasses tall enough to hide the fresh pishogues, warm Molsons, and other Woo-Hoos! of the day. Through the backwoods, through stray bullrush, along tall poplars that shaded triplexes, to the copse of trees which hid Kik Cola cases, which, in turn, shielded one precious copy of Oui. Through and out to the subway

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to downtown Montreal and the Imperial Cinema — Enter the Dragon, Ilsa, Death Race 2000. If only I could have kept to the original plan to just sit there — if only I could have just sat there through the intervening years: the failed attempt to wear soft blue, writing “phallocratic” in a notebook, Bennington, a massage that was just a massage, dancing to a Stevie Wonder song at a frat party, writing the number 7 with that ridiculous little cross in the stem, a Roxanne Shanté cassette, an essay where all references to Melville’s “Benito Cereno” somehow came out as “Burrito Cereno” — if only I could have sat there until I saw the chiaroscuro flicker of pirated Hong Kong videos — Uncle elbows One-Eye, One-Eye sticks Loathsome’s hand in hot oil, Loathsome slices Big Mouth’s belly open, Big Mouth takes own opened entrails and chokes Odious with them, Odious wriggles free, pistolwhips Flatface, delirious Flatface drives over Lobster with motorcycle, Lobster smashes Mr. Handsome with bottle of wine, Mr. Handsome slams Uncle Two onto pavement, Uncle Two holds Crumpleface over a ledge, Crumpleface hangs Moustache from a meat hook, Moustache breaks Fatty’s legs with a frozen turkey. Higher ambition: Cuervo submarinos and pretending to learn the Greek alphabet — never quite knowing ελληνικος from τουρκος, or my own ass from my underwear, for that matter. Through silkweed sneezes and chokecherry fears, the backwoods stretched out:

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Gosh, I didn’t think I was expressing a nightmare, I thought that was all cleverly disguised in the art, that I crested above with champagne elegance like David Niven or, at least, David Soul. I had no idea one could tell by just looking. The backwoods — once you wade through ankle deep sinkholes of mulch and mud — lead downtown, and then to Toronto, to Vancouver, to Saskatoon; to Vegas, to Charlotte; to London, to Lourdes; and, most memorably for me, a market stall in Baltimore, MD where a waitress eased my worry with the words: “Then don’t think of it so much as fried chicken, hon, think of it as hen-flavored cookies.” Shhh, amid the sounds of flunking — a million flunkings like a flunked-up flunky of a flunk, Flunky Flunkerson flunking as mayor of Flunkytown. Shhh. Won’t you take me? Next thing you know it’s 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday in Ottawa, Ontario and for reasons I like to pretend are too complicated to list, I sit under cover of a gazebo behind the parliament buildings, stare at the Ottawa river, thinking some profundity will synchronize with the river’s course and crucial anxieties will dissipate into a cold arm of the St. Lawrence and I’ll be assured, at least, that there really is little difference between Dada and Surrealism, between B- and C+, between Dino and Sammy, and I’d suddenly start doing

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what any self-respecting would-be Johnny Cash would do: from now on let the hand of God pick out my pants because, God, what with the cuffs and the colors — the pleats, the buckles, the loops, the twills, the buttons, the pockets, the hidden pockets, the seams — the choices are impossible. That relationships are imperfect seems wise, challenging and poetic — but why, God, do the pants have to be so troubling? Do I regret writing “I spent the whole summer jealous of the sun that got to kiss the freckles on your nose”? Or am I preparing for the final departure through those backwoods, where it’s all cuckoo Concorde flights, sending imaginary mai tais to the table of Mrs. John Stamos and waiting for the sad news that Jim Nabors has died? Goodbye Gomer Pyle, though I never knew you at all; you had the grace to say “Shazam!” when Sgt. Carter yelled. I flee some narrowing path, red-faced, thinking I may be too old to crawl under desks, too old to be mocking desks crawled under. Time to dream a dream of a bathroom like Jerry Lewis’s, the place where Jerry hid from industry and family alike, a football field behind the lock, a mansion separate from the mansion, unassailable; donc, donnez-moi la salle de bain de Jerry, a mansion separate from the mansion, a football field behind the lock, its own satellite dish system, an anteroom just for pinky rings. There, in that most private private, I would open up the door lightening quick

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and just grab the paper the butler had set aside at dawn and click the door behind me. Let’s see, front page of the Society News: “Rich Family Voted Most Generous” — a tale of how the Rich Family went on to help a man nicknamed “the Onion” whose breath was so so bad it could melt prison bars; but, the Rich Family figured a cost-effective way to convert his breath into a kind of auto fuel. Just a matter of time now before Richie stabs Cadbury for serving veal marsala, and Gloria will have to see Master Rich in prison (she would rather see him lethally injected than have to listen to him talk of “the veil of tears”) while mean Cousin Reggie euthanizes the pet dog, Dollar. O Peter Poverty’s all tuckered-out, suffering gravely from the fuck flu. Somewhere in the back pages, a picture taken with a high-powered telescopic lens: a black & white of a meaty hand, reaching for a newspaper. The man with the hand is quoted: “I never did get over my blemish years my years of diseases & fears.” A nightmare-ish thing only; concert-puffing, T-shirt in tight jeans tucking, ninth grade type — nothing a handful of stolen Valiums wouldn’t easily cure. Through the backwoods, through wilted maple and discarded Frigidaires, I’m sure I’ll come to that sunlit clearing where I’ll finally see the palm trees of the Don Valley,

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the GTO convertibles cruising Danforth; the carpark view to the avocado groves of Etobicoke; the Big Kahunas of Ryerson who dump school and head to The Beaches with their boogie boards; the light-drenched promenades off Bathurst, all tanned shoulders and tae-bo legs where Courtney shouts “Hey Brownshoes” to her man, the surly valets of the Parkdale Spago their belly-full of Queen & John — I’ll meet you and your freckles there. Pour lui, c’est fini — le pays est frappé and it feels like a long winter sleep. Waking up not just to green and yellows but to gray pin-stripes and scratchy pink coffins, loony vampirics: an ability to miniaturize potentials, to call that pride, and stumble out back.

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Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” by Frank Sinatra Suzanne takes ya round that place by the river You can hear the taxis rush by her You can do some kooky things with her Cause she’s a nutty kinda tramp Who ain’t got change for a sawbuck But she’ll feed you tea and oranges Just like a Chinese restaurant And just when you try to tell her That it’s splitsville baby She’ll get you in her lunchhooks And you’re talking to the Jersey River Just like it was your mother (chorus) And you want to go to Vegas You want to go to Tahoe Cause you won’t be shootin craps With that freaky little side dish By your side Now Suzanne takes your hand As you go struttin by the Plaza She’s decked out in sequins From Dolce & Gabbana Then she goes down like some hey-hey From a local massage parlor Then she’ll get you started Smokin those marijuana flowers

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There’s high rollers in the Sands And wiseguys in Caesar’s Palace Who are losers in the game of Keno And it’ll be that way forever While Suzanne pulls my finger (repeat chorus)

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Museum Sweet The Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta, with its hordes of gassy hyerperactive children is of no worse order or design than the Musée des beaux-arts in Montreal. The Musée, its gift shop crammed with Monet agenda planners, Monet coffee bodums, Monet cup warmers, cork bottomed Monet coasters, collapsable Monet umbrellas, and a special vintage of Monet wine; vinted to celebrate the tour of three Giverny paintings the master painted when he was, I believe, legally blind. I know, Monet was no clown. And I shouldn’t clown, particularly in a world when so many itchy people don’t care, when the lunks, they say, already found their artistic peak in the lyrics “Get outta my dreams, get into my car” and are no longer looking. I should not agonize the wait for Disney’s Monet, where the painter will always be accompanied by an adorable cartoon squirrel named “Rusty.” Where Rusty will say to Claude, at the close of the first act, “Your paintings should be fuzzy — just like me!” But why stumble on a lifelong wayward trip, even at the steps of a museum which advises Prepare to be refreshed?

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The Coke Museum: its permanent collection brims with bric-a-brac from the beginning; walls of Cola-happy Santa Clauses, musical memories of an age when it was thought soda might inspire a world of dyspeptic hippies to sing. But the Coke Museum keeps you waiting. Keeps you waiting with interactive hoorahs, with videos of sunshiney quench, while kids are just losing it, in pre-tantrum readiness, wondering when they’ll be allowed into the tasting room, to Xanadu, the tasting room, the tasting room — “Mommy, I will kill myself if we don’t get into the tasting room” — the stickiest floors in America. There, it’s all the pop you want. Taps flowing with every company brand, even ones from other countries, lime pickle and blackberry pie. What do you call the person who figured, “Lets fill tourists with gallons of syrup and then send them back into the Georgia sun”? I don’t know. The greatest genius ever? En pleine air, sugary thick dusk, shapeless in XXL T-shirts, all the regrets of slipping into the middle class now worn like favorite slippers. Love that Monet wine.

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See, while some may complain the Coke Museum is a rather blatant form of corporate propaganda, I thought it a refreshing look at a refreshed world. Must destroy Pepsico. Must destroy Pepsico.

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As Seen on ER It’s a poorly scripted / storylined ER scene; as if only 3 actors showed up and, no time to lose, they improvised. It’s Dr. Carter and Dr. Corday in green scrubs, talking dirty hospital work; with them is that big surly orderly, the fat guy, strangely overdressed and peripheral to the talk. Not that the orderly was there for doctor talk; it’s more as if to justify his spot in a cafeteria scene he had to play it up, be the DeNiro of surly big guys, emote behind hero sandwiches — show why he loses, why he could care less about new orders at work, why he just passes the salt to Drs. Carter and Corday. Not that the rapport’s easy between Carter and Corday; Carter’s talking the way Dr. Greene’s meant to talk, measured in handsome sad-sackisms, which doesn’t work — even though it’s just a small bit, a two minute scene. When the show breaks for commercial, you lose your place. What was up with the surly big guy? Why not pick a more involved dude or any other guy? Drs. Benton and Romano have unsettled issues with Corday — does that help? You’ve pledged so much time, so many Thursday nights to their precious, near-intimate talk, the coziness of $10 wine, the old sofa scene, fenced in from the emotional demands of work. “John,” Dr. Corday says, “why are we so dedicated to work?” “Elizabeth,” says Dr. Carter, “we may not be cut as average guys, but it doesn’t make us better.” Look to Fatty, yawn, fade scene. You can just imagine Alex Kingston, who plays Corday, complaining to the crew about such poorly-crafted talk, asking why Abe, the actor who plays the orderly, always loses.

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Abraham Benrubi also played Kubiak on Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, the footballer, the brute; matching his type to his work, making no bones, not pretending to talk Tom Hanks talk. But Jerry, that’s the name of the character, the big guy, is ballast, even in a tie, in his bits with the Carters and Cordays, definitely not cut for ER’s show-making narrative scenes. He’s a bit of a loser, luxuriating in the pities of the “nice guy,” appropriating himself in doctor’s / actor’s work every other day — listen to how surly he talks without the weight of narrative scenes.

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The Ballad of Scatter, Elvis’s Pet Chimp Talking about Elvis’s pet chimp Talking about Scatter He could hump your leg, he could drive a limosine He could stir your pancake batter In a world where you have to look far Just to find a chimp who will smoke a cigar Scatter could look up a girl’s dress The chimp had his own address The colonel bought him at a circus show Sent him first class to Elvis He was better than Rich Little When he shook his chimpy pelvis In a world where it’s no longer a show To see a chimp in cowboy clothes Scatter could tango on roller skates He really was a renaissance ape Don’t talk to me about J. Fred Muggs Or Wacko Jacko’s Bubbles Scatter could find your percodan He’d never say you were getting fatter In a world where it’s a terrible hike Just to see a chimp on a motorbike Scatter was nobody’s fool The chimp could never be cruel

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The Inaugural Poem of the Los Angeles Subway System Union Station: Suzanne Somers releases a 365-day agenda / planner and I must wonder what’s worse: the thought of giving up my free will for a year to the genius behind Chrissy Snow, or the nagging suspicion that, if I did, my life would be infinitely better. Out of a taxi at Union Station, straining for anything resembling a breeze, I’m back to not caring. After all, city squares are streaked white in Canada — that vague place I now call “Upstate New York” — church basements mingling old clothes and cabbage rolls, letter carriers fearfully leaving parcels on stoops beneath curled stairwells englacé. So, Union Station marble floors and cathedral ceilings — Deco and Spanish mission — the start of a thousand phony memories of something alleged to be “old Los Angeles.” That too is from the movies: fifteen cent griddle cakes and streetcars; bruiserweights at The Olympic Auditorium; The Trocadero, The Clover Club, The Alabam; chilipot and penny ante; snap brim hats and snub-nose guns; jagged crooktowns and vacant lot killers; black and white flash, Richard Widmark and rye. Union Station, a terminus for the MTA’s Red Line

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deep in the ground of the San Andreas fault, ready for business, ready to move, like everything here: to the mini-malls and tanning salons off Ventura Blvd. NOTE TO SELF: try to fit in. On the way out, I write in my agenda “I’m on my way out.” And I hope to notice other newly-local locals referring to merchandising as “merch,” to performances as “perfs,” but do not worry as the trains squeal and the angel dust angels sing, conversations turn, as they must, to more important things, improving improvement on improved improvement, beyond simple notebooks of poems that inevitably start with the phrase: “Let us compare worthlessnesses.” Now, towards real possibility: laser hair removal, advanced implant dentistry, tongue scraping, endoscopic brow lifts, collagen replacement treatments, blepharoplasty, microdermabrasion (“the power peel”), breast augmentation, (and its less popular sister) breast reduction, nipple improvement, bunion and hammertoe corrections, removal of the facial buccal fat pad, somnoplasty, cellulite grafting, laser bleaching, botox injections,

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hair transplants (scalp lifting, mini flaps), pectoral implants, chin and forehead lifts, laser skin resurfacing, smile designs, penis enlargement (did I mention penis enlargement?), ear pinning, tummy tucks, liposuction, liposculpting — oh, lipo, lipo, lipo. “We’ll all be safe when it’s Britney Spears’ 40th birthday,” says one woman to another woman getting out at the Wilshire Center, throwing her leather bag over her shoulder, like she was late for a meeting, the other smiling into her hand. NOTE TO SELF: stop staring.

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Hollywood / Vine: Where Gumm became Garland and Louise Kuzma became Traci Lords, there’s a lot of waiting. Hunkered down at The Frolic Room I frolicked with gin and in comes Sandra Bullock’s “sister,” the one the camera likes less, and we cuddled in a chaise lounge and I gratefully said, “Until I met you sweety-sweet I had no idea what a chaise lounge was.” She told me her real name was Angela and she was never going back to some redevelopment patch along the interstate flats of Western Michigan. Up until a few months ago, she was the “Gwyneth Look-Alike” at the Crazy Girls lounge — “But thass all in the pass,” she said, playing up her sense of self as fallen cocktail hag. She got up to dance to a garage-ska beat, intent, with a hard face, athletically imitating the carelessness of youth in her goofy boots and goofy zebra prints, the waitresses staring at her with the embarrassed, pitying look they had practiced on their fathers’ second wives. NOTE TO SELF: pretend fraying old jacket a tailored Hugo Boss original and don’t look back. So, I quoted The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and did not stop because I was in the bang bang boogie da beat. In the morning right there

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on the Hollywood Walk of Fame noticing all the unlikely bedfellows below foot W.C. Fields / Kirstie Alley, Jascha Heifetz / Richard Mulligan, Louis Armstrong / David Hasselhoff, who couldn’t help but wonder at the fickleness of the Chamber of Commerce and the idiots who walk all the way with their heads down. So, God / Chickenheart love can prove a congested drive-thru, but the way around town is smooth, just like the theme music from Barnaby Jones.

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Vermont / Santa Monica: NOTE TO SELF: get started on plan to publish world’s stupidest book, titled, The Walking Tour of L.A. Get walking: start from the tamale stand across City College, where you can ask, “How are the tamales?” and they will always say, “You don’t want them, man.” Start with a walkman and Xanax, a Wisconsinland waistline and bad karma, when you hit the praised Uzbekestanian restaurant you’re half way there; head to the beach, trading smoky outdoor stops with arctic airco stops, make time for the perfect latté encounter should it fan out in front of you, Mr. Aloof meets Ms. Unapproachable; mentally catalogue episodes of Saved By the Bell to take the pain away from your feet, enjoy the odiferous Sunlands where exhaust mingles with cinamony churros and one credit as “cute guy” in Saved By the Bell could be more meaningful than any doctorship, because, seriously, that’s the way it’s supposed to be; drink straight from the bottle, if you’re capable of learning one thing, ninny, hydrate, drink waterish things constantly, hydrate, angelface, hydrate; kick (with pointy boots) the junkies and the other tattooed freaks out of the Burger King washrooms

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because, as the world’s dumbest phrase knows, When you gotta go you gotta go. Hydrate. Freako shakes, freako shades, freako pills, make the Walking Tour of L.A. more interesting; the rustlings of fun, oh, that’s a carbohydrate-deprived Buddha in the spotlight, losing his Nirvana; sing through Beverly Hills, if I was sorry to be so far it all depends, sweetheart, on just how nude you are. Lost for at least a thousand nights, no more jokes about poor Erik Estrada, the time has come, por último, to contemplate the miles, the miles of dental floss that stand between you and Shania Twain.

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Imperial / Wilmington: Looked like they’d been traveling together; an older man and a baseball-capped dude. Unafraid as they wait, a transfer station trenched in the middle of the Inglewood Freeway, Watts to the north, Compton to the south; their words crackled into freeway noise, between inbound screeches and outbound roars; news of a Blue Line derailment. Oh no. The older guy ate pumpkin seeds and talked while the dude would answer like a quiz show kid, smart answers and determined corrections, always fidgeting with the brow of his cap. Spitting a gunfire spray of seeds, the old guy said, “John, you know how to win in Vegas?” John said he’d been lucky once but no, no. So, the art of the “parlayed” bet was detailed. “Like life, John, you can’t just bet the big game, if you’re in for the big game, bet on each game.” No sign of the train, no p.a. warbling. The older man wipes at his neck and sighs and starts John up on a mental puzzle whose deductions end with the funny phrase, “But, John, there’s no elephants in Denmark!” Finally, a voice scratches through the speakers: The Redondo Beach train will be delayed, service will resume in thirty minutes. Another bag of pumpkin seeds, John fixes his cap and gets ready. “John, do you know the 23rd Psalm? Do you know how the 23rd Psalm goes?” John says no but that seems unlikely. In the course of listening to the old guy, and fixing his cap, John revealed he knows how the Mormons named the Joshua Tree,

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why the Vikings blow chunks in the NFC, how to size a truck’s weight by just looking, and why, scientifically, you get those brain rushes when you eat ice cream too fast. Nevertheless, the philosopher was clear: “Well, John, it says, The Lord is my shepherd, it doesn’t say the Lord is our shepherd. That is, if you just don’t want to be saved that is really none of our business.” He makes circular gestures with his arms as if he means to include all of L.A., every smudge of paint. John looks up. “Goddamn Redondo,” he says. “Redondo, Redondo, it goes on and on, like it was always the same, Redondo.”

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2

Dr. Tubby Pursuing graduate degrees may well be the most useless thing I’ve ever done. This, keeping in mind, I’ve seen Supertramp twice. Waited all night for Ticketron tickets at MiracleMart, hands in pockets, pressing against glass doors — (as if) the closer the seats to the stage the further from High School. The girls wore western-style shirts with opaque snap-off buttons, the ones we loved had Farrah Fawcett-Majors hair; there was wine called Feu Follet in corner stores, to help wait out the hoarsening of a hundred thousand wannabes. I hate my life. The unreadables stack and eat memory; shoes pinch and the vodka tonics grow less tonicky; hello to selling frozen sperm on the internet. Hello Cleveland!

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Alanis Glossettes Thank U indolence, thank you silence to the dentist who hammered in that ill-fitting crown; there’s no proleptic Pepsodent anyway that would’ve kept the smiling up through September Song. You live, you learn; you graduate, you suck — but you still get some pretty nice stuff: a suspicious insurance plan, a terrarium full of exotic, slow-moving, stinging desert things. Isn’t it ironic another beefy plate of hot-links to stumble down the basement with — protein energy enough to name all those li’l nasties; I’ll call you “Toothy” and you’ll call me “Toothsome.” You oughta know that I pray everyday for the best the sandwich-making world has to offer, and I dream that God may take some time from setting fires, and the scorpion’s tail, unfurled, won’t snag at our mouths.

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Air Lardo Let me tell you where I was the day I knew it was all over (although I should have known the day I decided it was okay to wear one of those poly-blend track suits in public), because, since then, everything’s been pretty much the same. There I was running the floor in a noon pick-up league, running the floor with dorm annoyances and a few other gym-light perennials who’ve somehow made pick-up basketball their jobs. At the risk of sounding immodest — among aging, overweight, short, slow, Canadian poets — I’m not that bad. So, there I was running the lane and some kid dished-off (a hacker kid dished-off and the ball bounced, soft, into my hands): I stopped, popped, hit, and there I was, running back on D (funny how quickly you get back when you make your shot), and I’m running good for a guy my age, in my stride, and the kid looked over at me and said, “Nice shot, sir.”

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Is It Any Wonder? You’re the sweet sucaryl in my diet grape soda, the unexplored girl-love between Mary and Rhoda, a chalky mega-tablet of ginseng enhanced ginko-biloba, is it any wonder I love you so? You’re the tireless circus to my fading Piccadilly, the lipsticked Monica to my slick Willy, the cheese on the cheesesteak whenever I fly to Philly, is it any wonder I love you so? You’re a sweet, sweaty midnight dance, a snug pair of size fifty pants, a long vacation to Newfoundland’s Come by Chance, is it any wonder I love you so? You’re the caf extracted from decaf cappucino, a rock band that hires two people to play the tambourine-o, a bowl of champagne Jell-O with brandied mini-marshmallows, is it any wonder I love you so?

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Mr. Baseball To commemorate Mark McGwire’s 70 HR season, I was going to attempt to eat 70 Big Macs before the New Year, but my sweetheart said that was far too much baseball for her. Thank God for the tender words of love! Sometimes I forget the things I’ve accomplished but she’s always been there to remind me through gentle support. Once I suggested to a small crowd who admired my baseballese that I’d never accomplished much in the real baseball world, but she said: “That’s not true, honey; that’s not true at all! Remember, hon, when we went to the Stadium and we sat in a sticky right field grandstand, above the opponents’ bullpen on a 2-for-1 July night? Remember, honey, how you taunted Braves reliever Steve Bedrosian by mercilessly calling him ‘Bed Bug’ over and over, until he finally had enough and told you to ‘Fuck right off’? Remember that, honey? Remember? Bed Bug! Bed Bug!”

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Vili Fualaau à Paris I’m that guy — the 15 year old who slept with his Grade 9 teacher. Was I crazy? Now, living among passionate mannequins and Left Bank super-friends who could make you kill, I ask, was our life just like getting fat on airline food? You were a pastel-scarved 1970s stewardess, a paperback adventure queen, an editorial assistant down with Behind the Green Door, able to quote the greats through drapes of gin. Back home, school kids rhyme your name with the chorus, “The most fertile woman in the whole USA.” You named our kids Jennifer and Abel, I think, while I moved above a movie theater in sticky Montmartre. They still play Titanic, every day the same faces out there for a matinee, bourgeois Mesdammes who adore their little Leo, “jeune guerrier, — mon semblable, — mon Fualaau.”

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The Narcissus Bloat Alberta. I offered to have sex with Jasper the Bear if he would only give me a cigarette. Jasper, used to this sort of thing, pawed at the ground distractedly and said, “It’s all about you, superstar, isn’t it?” So, I got back on the train. Put my dinner jacket over the roomette’s mirror in order to not notice what is noticeable: Cap’n Supersize in a frayed blazer, writing zingers for a wing-ding of a wake. O povero sentimentalo who couldn’t hold the tomato in hand, couldn’t extricate its acidities with a straight face; poor middle-class American with periodic nacho stains, rarefied misspellings and obvious glances at magazine places. Mountainland elk and deer yawned by the tracks and we passed Chez Jasper in the elegance of public transport. The window reflection was no less forgiving; darkening my private movieola of uncomplicated lunches and straight teeth.

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Shake Hands with Oprah So, Cagney rubs Harlow’s face in the grapefruit, hooray. Oprah snaps and the audience lights up — the fast kind of applause, when the stars are doing their thing. Phones they’ve never seen never stop ringing. Back to Oprah, her struggle with weight, her indefatigable faith in the kindness of mean advice, kibitzing Dr. Phil as he rubs faces in videotaped legacies of shame and deceit. The audience loves it. Cagney ends up reclusive, an appearance in the movie Ragtime, almost unrecognizable. But, with popcorn in their laps, the crowd knows he’s still the guy, that’s not William Cagney, co-star of 1934’s Palooka. Back to Dr. Phil, he’s large and bald, the kind of man who’s fired a rifle in his backyard, uncomfortable in TV pancake. He’s a star now, tread soft, the audience knows it too.

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Tubb E.’s in Love The letter came to my door and, what a sinker ball; I had no experience with the law except when the words “drunk” and “cousin’s wedding” have appeared in the topic sentence. What was the problem? You sang some a-ok karaoke in your day. Once, your father even said to me, “I’m proud of you, boy. And by proud, I mean ashamed.” Irreconcilable. I thought she shouldn’t sleep with some dude who looked like Vince Gill. She thought otherwise. Now a 1-800 lawyer is telling me about potato-chip breath, an eighteen-inch neck and size six shoes. So, there’s no Let’s be friends. Like when a doctor hands you a pamphlet titled I guess you’re wondering why I had my hand up there? — it’s a little late for such upbeat patter.

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Gnawed End Piece I said I’d be good as soon as it was all over, the corpse laid out straight; in pinstripes, like a happy mob don. No more painted carnations, no tragic typos, no Rummy-o & Juli Ashton who die in front of a tsk-tsking Abby. “Hell’s hottest pokers,” the Abby says, “are on reserve for those souls who’ve misfiled library books and those who’ve worn Kiss the Chef bibs.” Gas up and go, Swee’ Jesu’, I never cared for sandals anyway and I am done.

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Millennial Predictions The ghost of Bill Clinton will haunt the White House and impregnate the ghost of Barbara Bush. Chef Boyardee’s Beefaroni will contain a new, fad ingredient: live sparrows. Billy Ray Cyrus will help change medical history with his so-called “Achy Breaky Cure for Lupus.” Jesus will return to earth, but only to guest star as a cranky radiologist on ER. Dogs and cats will settle their ancient animosity, then they will breed and create a new superspecies that will eventually enslave humans as their personal groomers. Humans, in turn, will be able to lick themselves. In order to combat demographic shifts, 10-year-olds will be allowed to vote and hold office: this will lead to the controversial “Grampa Smells Funny” initiative. The “Utah Jazz” will change their name to the “Utah Progressive Jazz.”

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Big Pants on Campus The fire inspector grilled me merciless about the lack of an adequate escape. “What would you do if there was a fire?” he pressed, “I don’t know,” I shrugged, “die?” But I escaped anyway. Went on the road with poetic intentions, but only wrote one thing, hurriedly, in a Snoopy notepad: “Why’s there no meat-flavored liquor?” No souvlaki schnapps. No Absolut Poulet. Yes, the work was visionary — like “pre-moistened” Tic Tacs — and as shelf-ready as Cajun-style talc, but it sure didn’t prepare me for failure in South Bend, Indiana. If shrimpy Rudy could play for Notre Dame you’d think I could at least find a unique campus souvenir; like some asbestos-twilled, tent-sized Kelly green T of a leprechaun barbecuing a wolverine. I’d snooze safe under there.

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Thank God for TV Way down in Spartanburg, South Carolina I thought about hot-plate dinners back home; but an episode of Roseanne popped up on my portable TV, a Thanksgiving episode with the other (prettier) Becky. Later, refreshed, I waited out a thunderstorm in the front seat of the car, edited stages of my life, memorialized everything tried, even that hopeful day we sent out a call for a little and literary magazine. And the manuscripts came: young women who act surprised when the rotten plum of love drops; young men who hate America. Thank God for TV. As if you never asked me to tear your heart in two. As if you hadn’t pencilled it in somewhere between “henna-treatment” and “Master’s Degree.”

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Lardcake III: The Wrath of Tubby I may well be the first poet to have had a manuscript rejected by a vanity press. “I’m sorry, Mr. McJickster, we understand you are willing to invest five thousand dollars, but even Ace Publishing has standards.” But perseverance has had its rewards, and, as Ron Hunt, holder of Major League Baseball’s record for being hit-by-a-pitch, knows, the line between perseverance and stupidity is quite fine. Whatever, instead of going away, I became strong. And let me tell you, the day I finally decided I had to kick my brother out of my “management team,” that was the toughest call my agent ever had to make.

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That’s New England to Me A shirtless guy at the ice cream stand Competing Van Halen cover bands A double order of whole-bellied fried clams That’s New England to me The traffic tripling by Mid-July People wearing clothes the fashion-wise villify “May I recommend the turkey pot pie?” That’s New England to me The Vermont maples are a true delight The Mystic Seaport makes me shiver I’ve drank homemade gin with New Hampshirites and I’ve barfed in the Androscoggin river So go get into the freakin car We’ll order a freakin Sam Adams at the freakin bar Cheer the heroics of Nomar Garciaparra That’s New England to me

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More Millennial Predictions The giant face of the Buddha will appear over the Western Sky just to ask: “Hey, what’s Shatner doing?” There will be a McDonald’s franchise on the moon, but the Lunar Big Mac will be made entirely out of poison mushrooms. Canada will be spelled with “o”s instead of “a”s. A whole generation of non-readers will be rewarded when the U.S. finally changes its official motto from e pluribus unum to You Complete Me. Jim Henson’s legacy will be immortalized when “Spanky the Lion” becomes the first Muppet to serve as Vice President of the United States. Spanky will leave office after a sex scandal with Senator Baba, a cartoon goose. Death Row Inmates will be given a crucial choice: Lethal injection or Visit from Richard Simmons? To spice up the world of medicine, the hippocratic oath will be filled with catch phrases from the Austin Powers movies.

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Gravy-Boy 360° In cold-hearted Buffalo I wandered lonely as a rib roast in Calista Flockhart’s freezer, spraining my ankle on a streetcar groove. Convalescing in a rotating restaurant, with a slap of still-hopeful cologne, I knew by the first ache of Spring I’d be chasing squirrels and kicking fieldgoals once again. But, O, the Empire of late lunches and tip-issue guilt-trips has tumbled! A mere ninety degrees into the restaurant’s turn, I knew I would never be young again. I accept. I do. If there’s ever a call for a remake of Jake & The Fatman I know it would be a waste of time to audition for the part of “Jake.”

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Cali-Tiki In San Diego’s Bali Hai, a fishbowled Blue Curaçao thing; a sweet push toward Tijuana paramecium, jardinerie with potable orchids, watching Pearl Harbor-bound destroyers head to sea. At San Francisco’s Tonga Room, rainfall indoors, while Fairmounters happy houred in Tahitian breeze; buffeteers sheltering underneath bamboo thatches as a floating orchestra played “Jungalero” and “Sunken City.” Ola Los Angeles and Sunset Blvd’s tight Tiki-Ti feuling Los Feliz glamoramas; nights in white cotton, bets industry-ready bodies will be celebrated and clear a wall of gin and tamales. Bahooka! The idol-head watching, making horrible sounds (unpacifica). Bahooka! Love it up sweet and sour. Bahooka! Ginger-snapped lips. Bahooka! Bahooka!

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The West Wing-Ding Lyndon Johnson picked Mike Pearson up by the ears and sang “The Yellow Rose of Toronto” until Mike agreed he’d love to piss away the day with LBJ, crying and drinking — drink and cry. Johnson claimed to his staff that even Grant cried at Shiloh; “Manly tears, yes, they were, but they also say the General continually doodled his own name and drew a cartoon character who looked a lot like Popeye.” O tucked in secret coves of the Oval Office, where doodles and cigars gather presidential dust, there’s a whole wide system of showers and baths; installed in the height of The Great Society. One day, a bathgel-fresh Exec will emerge who’ll tell a great grandchild of Winston Churchill: “I may be drunk, but you, in the morning, will be most drunk, that is drunker, because of all your previous drinking.”

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Fatlanta, GA I resolved to be cool with hanging out in tourist bars, I mean, where was I going anyway? My belly well outrunning my belt in the Peachtree Hard Rock, Clearly, even among Canuck ex-pats, I was no Alan Thicke. I resolved to stop sweating under the Georgia sun, and to model full fractions of my life on a recent appearance of a thin-haired David Cassidy on Geraldo. Where Are They Now? That’s today’s cockeyed focus. Hickory smoke wafted from sweet Auburn street and inhabited old T-shirts I was (and still am) too cheap to throw out. So they sneered at me at the Peachtree Models Café, purred sweet, “Ooh, I just hate smokers; oh, it’s such a turn-off.” A billion fishes for just a little bit of breakfast. Thank God for the coffee shop in the Buckhorn bookstore: after hours of cross-referencing pop-psychology paperbacks, I really needed a place to sit down.

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Secret Confessions of Jacques Cousteau Dolphins are dirty, dirty creatures I wonder what they’d look like if they wore shoes? If they were as smart as they say they are Why can’t they turn tuna into a kind of booze? Did you ever try to kiss a walrus? I swear they’re quite ridiculous in the matters of the heart The same thing goes for those Florida manatee Who try to eat propellers instead of fine chocolate Oh, when I put my son in the shark cage, I tell you sometimes I forget to lock the door That dumb kid dragged me to see Jaws about twenty times And maybe I don’t want to see it no more O dolphins are dirty, dirty creatures They can’t even eat off of plates They don’t drink wine or wear cologne They’re the ocean’s greatest disgrace

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Poto-Tato The last bit of fried pie upon which I dine the smack of the open window by the TV — I will not jump, I lunge out with everything: O Minnie Pearl, O Barney Fife, O Franny Fine. To God, to hum along with his Karaoketron 2000 and sing the body selective, Walkmaning a workout, reaching for youthful postures of cool: O Duke of Earl, O That’s Life, O I Walk the Line. The way it sings was all about Cold Ethyl, half-memorizing the screenplay from the unsuccessful Tom Cruiser Cocktail, O Pink Squirrel, O Miller High Life, O Turpentine. Drunk on Cheerios, wasted on echinacea, backward-dreaming to where total opposites get along — where megababes and superhunks walk together: O cherry stem swirl, O nasty ex-wife, O four-five times.

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New Chunky McBeal Soupa de sniggery, loofa pad until we part ca’ cannie Deseronto bimbette to Lake Oblongata and Jenna Elfman on TV. Oh, inklings of sweet deliquencies forgive the fattery of my fling with prose, complimentary olive bar drippings — I am tossed along the brine. Shovelhouse of pancakes, vindaloo morning heat a choice from the tray, donutty, sweet “Get up, you jackass” in my ears. Mega-tablet twitterings all about unloveable signatures, O Gravy Boy, the sea is bubbling — a broth you’ve finally lived to regret.

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Dollar Store Blazon She’s as pretty as a very pretty thing, soft as something very soft; her eyes twinkle like some bright but soft non-dull shining thing shining brightly bright. Her hair has a kind of sweetness, a sweet kind of, you know, kind of sweetness, and, like, it made me rethink what I’d thought, thinking we were married on the brightest bright Spring day. Through the years I was so thinking I’d once so say it right; love you until Pauly Shore goes Oscar, until Fabio writes light opera, until Kathie Lee Gifford fires up her crackpipe and kisses the ghost of Dinah Shore. For you, Jennifer Love Hewitt will have to rename herself Jennifer Warmfeeling Hewitt — the term love itself exhausted, like all my words, when held to the light of that Spring.

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Darva Conger’s Oscar Party The prisoner scene: through steel bars, emoting a lost taste for wine, butter. The confrontation scene: dousing candlelight, wanting to stay up all night scotched. The bonding scene: a fringed outfit, a friendly laugh, a touch of the forearm. The dinner scene: plastic tableclothes stacked high, the arrogance of eating that way — quickly. The skating scene: a tight crowd, singing along to children’s songs about locomotion. The bar scene: an idiot dressed in trendy blacks looking like a deranged member of Mummenschanz. The happily ever after scene: taxis and unused pasta machines; medicated fame. The Hollywood scene: my sweet rejectementa tonight, tonight.

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Evel Knieval Knoodle I saw the face of Evel Knievel in a tortilla and, lo, the flatbreaded Evel understood me; talking and waiting at least ten minutes before threatening to break arms, legs. “Life has its ups and downs,” Evel said, “or, in your case, its downs and its further downs.” On second thought, though market-fresh, the tortilla wasn’t so friendly — but oh how it revealed my inner Knievel. Or, the less courageous one, headfirsting into walls, assfirsting into sofas, a little Go fuck yourself for old friends.

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3 Hamburger Valley, California

Hamburger, hamburger, the desert valley lights — San Bernardino opens out, my great neon drink bubbling its icy pinks and turquoises, satisfying the near-summer night. Crucifix-shaped cactuses slanting off hills back towards the Phoenix suburbs and their heartblooded industries; the intoxicating pheromones of their jobby crowds. Hamburger, hamburger, my last little dream, my last promise to myself. At least —

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until I do the things I’ll never do: light those vanilla-scented candles, whisper a forgiving psalm, get those flip flops so I can walk around the pool to consider the difficult laps, the laps and laps, write that letter back, a postcard of a jackass — regimens, routines. Middle-aged nerviness, yelling angers out over the phone as if the world was a service industry. I give up — it is no longer for me to ask why she ever said things like “Hey OK” and “Oh my good gosh,” it is no longer for me to specify little remorses remembered perfectly. So ring out the Taco Bell, tell Wendy to grease up the griddle, Santa Claus is back in town.

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Burgerlotion, burgerlinament: burger combo with lengthy nap and sex-fantasy to go. A small tattoo of an English rose on the right deltoid — the one who said it was the best in the country, the hottest in the sack — the biggest fly freshest. A prime New Year’s Resolution, to temper an “obsession with aging,” is being dragged under the wheels of a big ugly: I’ve hauled out the toupées again, recushioned the lifts, and strung the truss tight as a viol. I’m dying. Fatburger so, Mayoburger go, Sweetburger to the lips I am dying for just a bit more. A bite for everybody I was ever too shy to talk to, not just Willie Mays in The SkyHarbor Airport, or Trisha Yearwood on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, but people who stood beside, and maybe took such “shyness” as something else, a peevish nit in need of milk thistle scouting the country, inhaling something heavier than carbon monoxide. I’m not so shy at countertops. What do I know but crunchy-o lettuce? Salty-o mush of creamy-o sliced American-o? In Colton, in Riverside, in Redlands, Highland, Bloomington and Muscoy; in Loma Linda, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana and Rubidoux; in Buena Park, you know I’m dying too. I’m in Hamburger holyland and St. Patty, why try to be more than you? Hamburger, Spamburger, e coli supernova

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with double stuff and imported toppings supreme, stuff me with import, what made you all that you are (you are) to me? Sure, there’s memories of difficult puzzles solved on downtown-bound subway rides, memories of shared dental insurance, smiles across second-hand sofas, walks to the park and back, once spotting a cardinal in an ash tree — but I’m not in that grove anymore, my great forgetful friend.

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The Hamburger Song Hamburgers are delicious even though they cause heart attacks, but you are so much more to me, hamburger, than just another meat-filled snack. Hey, hamburger. I was in the California desert when I knew you were my true friend, I was going across the Interstate on an arts council stipend. My foot was asleep and I had a strange rash, I knew by the time I reached L.A. I’d have to phone my Grandma for cash. But I had to get something to eat, preferably something in a bun, and even the cancerous heat lamps wouldn’t stop me from having more than one. The foodlady said it would take a second but I said, “I want it faster you old hag.” And I honked my horn and I honked my horn until I saw you there in the bottom of a greased-stained paper bag. But you could see I was tired, hamburger, and you took a look into my eyes; you said, “Pull over, Dave, you fat bastard, and just let me drive.”

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And you took the wheel with your little hamburger hands and those sad sesame seed eyes, looking down the hood, and you drove me all the way to Circus Liquor right there in North Hollywood. O Hamburger, you’re more than a sandwich to me. You knew I’d never make it, hamburger, and I should have never opened my lips, and it was a huge mistake to tell my friends I was going to be starring in a remake of CHiPs. But you never let me down, hamburger, never told me I should go back to school, big delicious hamburger . . . no wonder the whole country loves to eat you.

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O jingle burger, were the song true, the kiss in the rain by the Presbyterian High School would have lasted forever. A cab would never have been hailed so two people could say, “Are we glad to see you,” to a disinterested hack. That ride took years: eventually leading to a small kitchen, curtains thumbtacked over windows, the rattle of spaghetti pots, frustrated arguments about social history. Is the hamburger the eponymous snack from Hamburg, Germany? Why do you have to act that way? Did two Ohio brothers originally from Hamburg, NY invent the hamburger for the 1885 Erie County Fair? Must you raise your voice? Was it Wisconsinite “Hamburger Charlie” Nagreen who first bunned round ground for the 1885 Seymour County fair? It’s not you, it’s me. Did “Uncle Fletch” Davis of Athens, GA get a five-year head start? I need a break. It has been said Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, CT had it on the menu in 1900. I have to think things through. My delirious Pasadena claims they were the first town to top it off with cheese. I guess I’ll see you. I’m finished. Bite me.

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God Bless Los Angeles. Murmur burgertotenlieder in perfect weather, say sweet; fuck all y’all, there will never be a younger fresher than today. Don’t really know why the burger’s bruising song — another something about somebody else? Another referral to Contender v. Bum? Stepping out of gutters to swoon, can’t keep up with my lies, and fatigued with the ardors of my truths — hey there, you with the cola and fries. I swear to Ben Cartwright and Bob McAdoo to Bruce Lee, Gene Simmons, and Mr. T too, I’ll have the In-N-Out Quarter Pound Big King Classic Bravestar Duo Western Gigantic Brazier Denny’s Slider Chief Mega Double Big Shef Super Shef Gino Giant Mongo Whata Justa DeLuxe Whopper Hi-Boy Royale Bazooka BigMac Swisstop Mexi Moomoo Piggiestyle BigBoy Alpine-Peaked Colossal Dreem-Land Boom-Boom Double-Double Dandy High-Life Grampa Rollie Cheesestuffed Flamekissed Castletop Superstar Jack-in-the-Box Quickie Lums Butterslicked Charbox Homestyle Sizzler Cowtown Triplelayered BBQ Chilislopped Maxibeef Tower Great Big Chuckchunk Kahuna Elvis Stomper All Dressed Root n’ Toot Fat One.

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So, Merry Presley, baby, sure did cheese me right. Hungry Presley Agonistes, fought the burger’s dark delight. Well, it better be real well-done like a fried banana sand’. Priscilla Priscilla Prezzo, consigned to hell on my radio, Priscilla Priscilla Prezzo, consigned to hell on my radio. She was always there to do some dopey doper called Karate Del Groovyanio.

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La La Burger: its all just names and place names now; stained on pages, uncollected like hotel notepad notes stuffed in top drawers along with pennies and mini-golf scores. And along with thinking things will change I’ll have to throw it all out. A sack of belly bombs: legends of a fatness of face put in proper relief; another Ugly Canadian swoons USA, leaves a signature on an HMO deal, and shares the dream of Macaulay Culkin’s parents; big whoop, ingleses y canadienses promenading Santa Monica in dull shirt collars, knocked-off patterns and regal basketball shoes. Promenade burger I love you too. Oh, beyond the mayonnaise, all I ever wanted is closer: Californian grace, a layer of phoniness around me so thick, so thick it can’t be penetrated by atomic bombs or the wheedle of would-be in-laws. Right tight in the lounges of Los Feliz — in Downey and in Lynnwood, in Lincoln Heights and San Marino too —

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in Echo Park and Hancock Park, you know I’m dying too. On the freeway, pointing the car directly into a jam, surrendering thoughts of back east, up North; you know, the postcard address. I’m not sure I ever really noticed you — hair pulled back, jeans with white stitching, fidgeting feet in ridiculous, clunky shoes; daytime cocktails derailing sullen regimens; remorsefully acknowledging the impossible — another surrendered collection of xys released into your crowded orbit? and into briefcases of young lawyers? Puke. Au tristesse, nous le marchons toujours, or, to a sadness I will walk today (at least) towards envy-chipped coffee cups, and Did I do that? scraps, coupons, the pride of middle-aged desire, Viagra-like, up for no good reason but up all the same. Hamburger, hamburger, the sun edges away, fading regrets — stealing the earth beneath an old self with one good gobble, hand never far from the honker, hand straining

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for the phantom cell phone and a still familiar number; “What? What’s that you say?”

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I twiddle the radio but for the jukebox I scramble: — “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ with Burgers on Your Mind.” — “Baby Got Big Mac.” — “I Want Burgers to Want Me.” — “She Thinks that I Still Like it Rare.” And the can in a Bakersville can had it all; a plastic glasstop all scratched by car keys until milky opaque and you sort of had to guess; where the kitchen served the dreaded “gristlewich,” not a grain of real meat to interfere with the taste of imitation beak and claw; press K-14 HEAR! Johnny and the Gristlewich Rangers SWING! as the Rangers bring you back in time ROCK! as Johnny tells the terrible tale PLAY! along. A fan of Tex Ritter? Eddie Arnold? Cher? Why not Johnny and the Gristlewich Rangers?

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Gristlewich, gristlewich, big, dirty and low. Gristlewich, gristlewich, bring on the show. I went to the drive-thru all red about the neck, talked to the kid, he was no Alex Trebek. Gave up on the city, the place where I’m from, bought a clean shirt at K-Mart cause I ain’t no bum. Gristlewich, gristlewich, big, dirty and low. Gristlewich, gristlewich, bring on the show. Got a jumbo diet tucked between my legs, pulled into traffic with the local boneheads. Doing the crow-dance on Sunset I think I’s heat sick, but throwing burgers at strangers was still quite a kick. Gristlewich, gristlewich, big, dirty and low. Gristlewich, gristlewich, bring on the show.

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Thrown in some backseat I was feeling quite parched, “Officer, please stop at the next gristlewich arch.” I see a reflection in the window and think of my turtledove — I got a face only an Orange County doctor could love. Gristlewich, gristlewich, big, dirty and low. Gristlewich, gristlewich, bring on the show.

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O! Unhappy! A meal I fell asleep before finishing. I don’t know what’s more humiliating, waking up with a Whopper on your chest, or, the brief thought, I wonder if this is still good? In the noon hour company of would-be Book Boys, it was difficult to pretend I was going through the same thing (or anything at all), pissed at my agent, still confident with Armani. Sneaking away on “business” the talking to myself was certain; “Never, ever again,” I said, except, slowly, repeating the word “ever” 1,000 times (I counted) before finishing the thought. Done like dinner: meaningless punishments, mile high condiments, bakery working 24-7, my hamburger my pax americana, our hamburger, because God is busy listening to Cheryl Crow records and Jesus, the Big Hippie, is practicing his “porkchops & applesauce” stance. Ah, happy as a hall monitor with a megaphone, the first time I saw that donut-free thigh; yeast for the eyes, rise, rise, rise;

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and dancing to Dancing Queen upstairs in a wood-paneled room, floorboards gummy with layers of paint; but the next song sucked and we sat, pursuing ale (not very cold), so, in the morning the philosophy was less “nothing compares 2 u” in a beaded summer dress and more “what the hell happened to me?” Promenading old Broadway and the Central Market — contemplating taco fillings sesos, tripas, morcilla, buche, chicharron — the talking to myself was certain; actually, I’m singing. Singing the “Pennsylvania Burger Polka” or at least the portion I know: Jackass beer-jockey and frankfurter barge; da-da-da-da do you have that in extra large? And I bop to my outrage, hum along at Julio’s burger stand and I’m into it, feeling it, just want to turn to a poor guy concentrating on his camarones as if he had become Horatio and say, “Please, don’t give me that. Don’t friend me; as friends go we weren’t Kirk and Spock or Kirk and Bones,

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hell, we weren’t even Chekov and Sulu.” Forget it, Enterprise, on the street again, into the car, under the stars by a way station in Topanga Canyon, galaxies all slopped over, willy-nilly, against the sky. Makes me hungry again, my stupid. Forgetting is the pièce de résistance, because who hasn’t read about unclean “gut tables” in careless slaughterhouses; the biotoxica, the bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the myriad pathogens found in meat indiscriminantly ground up and served to poor folk? Who hasn’t heard at least one meaty tale about some fast-food kid who spits in every third order? Don’t friend me. Remember how when we went to the Planetarium and the guide said the Sun is burning out — spending itself as any fire must — and there’s only enough fuel to last 5 million more years? Can’t remember all he said, underneath such fixed stars, but it really made me think twice about extending a membership at the Y.

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With extra onion, please. Recrudescent dontgiveafuckism percipient pissuparopeism aperient weallgottadieism and that’s what I’d call fun “in the warm California Sun.” You can’t touch me when I’ve gone Hollywood — it’s all set in the books, deep in their glossy impossible blues, their orange bounties, and hairstyled heavens. 4Ever. Maybe after years, one of those cards; a tastefully non-denominational holiday greeting, hooray for Canadian winters, cheeriness bounding out in expressions like “Oh, my! My!” Even if she could pick up a catalogue of her life would she notice thousands of snapshots of a circuitous route she took home from school just to avoid chit chat with a nosy crossing guard? Would she ever bother to flip to the page which notes her only foray into the argot of People Magazine was once saying, “I’d like to stab Mel Gibson”? Would she rush past the footnotes, with grad school confidence she’d get to them “later,” even when one note ventures how she’d hold her hands, as if caressing the bone-ache of a failed career in music, a failure she was convinced other people could see as clearly as a port-wine stain on her forehead? Maybe after years, one of those cards, a few sentences about how good her children are with the dentist, how chilly it is back home.

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L.A. today: they say Orson Welles still holds the hot dog eating record at Pink’s. The creator of Citizen Kane matching his cinematic vision with stubborn gastronomy plowing down 18 chilislopped weenies. Now, 18’s undeniably a lot of dog, you have to admit, but is the record for real? I mean if Larry the Lunk from Iowa or Steve McAn from Montreal waddled up there and plowed down 19 heart-stopping pups would management eagerly admit the Kid Genius’s record had tumbled?

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I fucked up. Thought it was nothing but fun, braving bad weather in the marketplace — ordering the most vertical cuisine, sitting back a little, nodding, and eavesdropping on indiscretions of people half my age — the next morning, none too eager to answer the phone. So today, I pay for the meaty thrill that would make a believer out of Fiona Apple and could return Linda McCartney to earth with a pair of tongs and a basting brush. I can hardly breathe. There’s the way newspaper’s taped to the window, the trick to turn the doorbuzzer off, no forwarding address, and there will be the perfect L.A. day: Breakfast at Cassel’s, Brunch at The Apple Pan, Power-Lunch at Tommy’s, Home-cooked dinner at Pink’s, and a late night snack at the original In-N-Out, and a late-late night snack at the original In-N-Out. Not that it was so bad elsewhere, La grande ville des bouffes — Oui? Non?, I’ve uglied-up some of the finer lounges of Montreal; donc the Western grills await.

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Squeezing past the gunnery ranges of the Chocolate Mountains and the retirement homes of Twenty Nine Palms all the rumblings of escape are equalized: Upper Peninsula pasties, Big Mac; Texas brisket, Big Mac; Philly cheesesteaks, Big Mac; Nebraskan runzas, Big Mac; Manhattan pastrami, Big Mac; Sheboygan brats, Big Mac; Rhode Island jonnycakes, Big Mac; Maryland softshells, Big Mac; Rochester white hots, Big Mac; San Francisco sour dough, Big Mac; Miami cuban sandwiches, Big Mac; Memphis dry rub, Big Mac; Buffalo beef on weck, Big Mac; Maine lobster roll, Big Mac; Vegas buffet, Big Mac; Kentucky burgoo, Big Mac; Chicago deep dish, Big Mac; South Carolina ’Q, Big Mac; New Orleans mufaletta, Big Mac; tamales, Big Mac; couscous, Big Mac; brik, Big Mac; spanokopita, Big Mac; malli kozhi, Big Mac; paella, Big Mac; pad thai, Big Mac; plascka, Big Mac; pho, Big Mac; bruschetta, Big Mac; pot-au-feu, Big Mac; caviar, Big Mac; Hunan beef, Big Mac;

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Montreal poutine, Big Mac; homemade, Big Mac. And death too my bad (my Big Mac).

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Fritous! Patate a Go-Go! Patate-a-tat-tat! In a Quebec City McDonald’s on Grande Allée just above the Plains of Abraham, there’s a pinewood carving in traditional French-Canadian style, a two foot tall figure of a dauntless fry cook — a spatula in one hand and what looks like a Big Mac in the other — under secure glass, artist uncredited, the face of the sculpture like an old actor in a skit about teens, his expression more “Look what I did!” than “You want fries with that?” Get yer hands off my bloody hamburger, I said I wanted it “to go.” Pour apporter. From the Tiltburger on Hochelaga to Bertrand’s with their homemade biere d’epinette, at Mellos, where silver sequined hundred dollar specialists, ordered wonders; at Spadina & College in the city where I’m sure a place called Sneaky Dees served up one of those unlucky burgers — you know, the ones with the spirochetes. Fresh pineapple on the side in Honolulu. From a drunkard’s deli on Eighth to the Varsity in Atlanta. From the one fried up with George Foreman’s Lean Mean Grilling Machine, to the hamburger placed on W.B. Yeats’s grave, there is no getting away. I knew her when she worked in fast food: when she dressed like Maid Marian I was her Rocket Robin Hood; when she ordered salad dressing at a real restaurant

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her hands indicating how the dressing should arrive “on the side,” I tried not to be embarrassed. She vowed she’d crush her parents, she’d work overtime, she’d become a manager with smoker’s eyes and a memory for names; but it was work which swallowed one whole — greasy, stupid work that involved a greasy, stupid public that must’ve seemed at times populated, foremost, by greasy, stupid me. There’s a harsh judgment in the wind, I’m sure, but as they say in the Ohio Valley, Kill the Umpire! Watch it slide way beyond today. I love you & I love you high-cal SoCal every bitty bite, even these —

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punch lines to dirty McDonald’s jokes: — — — — — — — —

“I love you baby, but the McNuggets are free.” “It’s kind of big, but it sure ain’t a Whopper!” “And Ronald said, These yellow gloves ain’t for scrubbin’.” “It’s sauce, but not a secret sauce.” “And that’s why Grimace lives in Provincetown.” “Let’s see if Wendy can choke that back.” “McChicken, my McAss.” “And that’s how the inventor of the Quarter Pounder became known as Stumpy Joe.” — “Oh, I thought you said happy feel.” — “What, you thought I was actually going to eat this?”

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They say check and triple-check, but the little frikadelle mistakes are killing. Killing me, Justice Burger, killing me, and a California night spells a life turned on itself. Forgive the soap opera star for being called “Jimmy Lee Holt,” forgive the tooth-loosening punches of angry locals, forgive the tour guide her great cheer but you need not commodify these deferrals — not before the final spiral which begins with the texture of bread and ends with the ocean’s complete blackness. The weekends have piled up, Wimpy, and I am, Jughead, just another cartoon face. The great strand of burgers: each sandwich like the last, each sandwich like the next, following me into my ready grave hip by hip.

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David McGimpsey is a poet, scholar and musician. The author of two previous volumes of poetry (Dogboy and Lardcake, also published by ECW Press), as well as the recent critical study Imagining Baseball: America’s Pastime and Popular Culture, he currently writes and teaches in Montreal.

Praise for David McGimpsey McGimpsey displays erudition, clever insights and a knack for the wickedly funny wisecrack. —The Washington Post McGimpsey’s pastel tones are insidiously pleasurable.

—The Halifax Herald Miracles of comic timing. Illuminating....

—Books in Canada —The New York Times

McGimpsey shows us that it is possible to speak about our lives with television in a language that is crisp, elegant and often sad.... He penetrates the heart of white-trash sensitivity and mortality. —Postmodern Culture Unlike so many academic studies of popular culture, McGimpsey’s work never leaves the impression of a highbrow deigning to walk among the great unwashed. It’s more in the spirit of Greil Marcus, finding meaning and connections where we hadn’t suspected them....

—The Montreal Gazette

ECW Press $15.95 Distributed in Canada by General

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