Too Good For Comfort

uggh, I wake up feeling stoned.

I look out the window. Its still dark out. I make a cup of coffee and then stagger to my chair where I get online. I still feel wasted after going to sleep last night...er, okay, I look at the clock. It's only 5:30. I just got into bed. I crawl back in and hit the sack.

This time I awaken at 10:00. That's more like it. I snagged that cup of coffee and get behind the computer for real this time. My toe is beginning to hurt. I'm not happy. I'm out of COCHICINE damnit. This is not going to be fun in a few hours. I sit behind my computer for the morning, which runs by much to fast. Soon, it is time for me to get ready for the SHOUT OUT.

I hit the Way which runs me across town in no time. Soon, I'm standing in the cold in front of OTTO's Shrunken Head. I take a break in the nearby Kennedy's Fried Chicken and have a couple of chicken wings before walking back out into the cold. That's how you fight against the cold and flu. Not by standing in a heated restaurant, but by eating fried chicken wings. They talk about the powers of chicken soup...well I cut to the chase. I speak of the power behind chicken. FRIED chicken in fact. Which can even cure astigmatism if you ask me.

Presently Cyndi Lauper opens the bar. You know, she is a true crackpot. Nasty attitude that just reeks from her. Every one of the poets hate her, and she hates them back. There is an uneasy truce over the bar and I'm not surprised or would not be surprised if one day she insults one of the female poets who reaches across the bar, pulls her narrow ass over it to the floor and proceeds to stomp the shit out of her. And like "Murder on the Orient Express" the bystanding poets lending a shoe or two in there.

I set up the stage and sound and prepare my poems with three poets already present and waiting. Suddenly Tom F walks in and we embrace. I haven't seen my brother in months. He looks well and prosperous. He has today off work and thought to grace us with his presence. I really can't wait to hear some of his new work. That's what I like most about the SHOUT OUT, and that is that you can have a front row seat with these kinds of things.

A fellow poet comes up to me, shoulder to shoulder and hands me a 'one hitter'. I look down at it. The little wooden rectangle, a little larger than a cigarette lighter. "If you want," the poet says. "I'll load you up one." I have no special compunction about such things. Especially after I was toking the night before. I head to the bathroom, set up and light up. Boom, the smoke went straight to my brain. No detour, no stopping at go to collect three hundred dollars. I started the obligatory coughing fit and came out of the john, wide eyed and happy.

OBSIDIAN soon arrives and we begin the SHOUT OUT with something called a 'round robin' where anyone can go up and take the stage for five minutes because there were just too few people to have the SHOUT OUT directly. This tactic goes over well, and we make it to the break with no problems.

With a beer on top of my bong, I am suddenly 'there' with a pleasant buzz. The SHOUT OUT steams forward, with us even going overtime. Oz and his band DEEP INTENT plays for us to close up the show, and I wrap everything up as the final MC. I pack away the stage and put away my laptop and soon I'm leaving with Oz, D-Lite and James, otherwise known as G-Hard out of the establish- ment. Is I pass the bar I see Cyndi Lauper and say goodbye to her. She responds while rolling her eyes with a sickly sweet smile. She looked more like "Chucky" the demon doll than a bartender. Well...whatever.

I walk out to find a layer of fucking snow every- where. What the fuck is this shit?? It's still snowing lightly. Doesn't the winter realize that we should be about halfway done with this shit? I play slip 'n' slide up the block with my companions, chatting away like Cathy until my brother catches up. We stop at the corner, and I hear my bed call out from home. I was too done with the night. OBSIDIAN wanted me to hang around while we talk shop but those minutes were behind me now. I'm too burned out to have the neurons for any higher brain functions firing. I'm missing staring at the wall in my room, watching the colors of the colorless wall swirl.

The Way got me home just as fast as it brought me down. Other than that I walked through a time warp and zoomed over here. When I got home I had a bowl of Cheerios, munching them things down with a certain rapaciousness not known before. When done, I honestly tried to write emails, but I could not focus on anything to even form words. It was time for sleep after a hearty yawn.

It was still a great day. I like when days go like this.

Hobobob