I had a profound moment of clarity during billiard therapy last week with Doctor Robert.

    We were shooting a game of straight pool and I came to a moment where there was a shot which required me to lean so far over the pool table as to make properly holding the stick virtually impossible. I reached down and picked up a bridge (we used to call it a granny stick back in the old days) and set it on the table. A bridge is basically a stick with a metal hand on it that creates an extension of your arm. Doctor Robert said, "No no no no no, you dumbass."

    "What?" I replied.

    "Put that away. You're not using a bridge for this shot."

    "Why not?"

    "You don't need it. Just shoot the shot with one hand."

    He had told me many times how to perfect my shots, how to hone the craft of precision. Now suddenly, he asked me to throw all that advice away and go for something wacky. "One handed? That's not gonna' be in line with the advice you've given me. Why would I go for a one-handed shot when I could use the bridge and get stability?"

    Doctor Robert looked at me with a quizzical eye and simply said, "For fun."

    Fun. Fun. That had honestly never occurred to me.

    "Tom, it's play pool. We're playing. It's a game, man. Now shoot the stupid shot."

    Sometimes we forget life is a game. We forget to have fun, or that life can even be fun. Hell, it should be fun. I reached out with the stick over the green of the table, wobbled and wavered a bit, took aim, and popped the cue into the nine. The nine dropped in the pocket. I felt a sense of satisfaction. I knew I had stepped across another hurdle in both my pool game and my life.

    "Good shot," said Doctor Robert. "But you should have used the stinkin' bridge."

every day
when i awaken
i see nothing but festering maggots

the light is green
why aren't the cars going
green means go

fucking maggots
everywhere

'hey man,
can i ask you a question?'
get to the point, asshole, you want money!

don't give me the story, man
everybody has the same story
one day, a man will just take what he wants

i'd prefer it straight like that
not maggoty. not maggot-like.
for god's sake, stand up and be somebody

don't be a maggot

i am forever in line behind maggots
a festering line that does not move
lines are supposed to move, not stand there

fucking maggots everywhere

'do you have twenty-three cents?'
no maggot, i have only dollar bills
sorry to disappoint you, maggot

'i am mute. do you have a cigarette?
give me a cigarette because i am mute.'
you're not mute, I hear you talking

you're speaking maggot

everything is rotting
from teeth to skin and then
there is gravity

we are, all of us, going down
into the dirt of the Earth
and an old tale is told

of a soul that will float off to
the land of milk and honey
or the kingdom of fire

maggots wrote that story
the truth is this: you go out of hell and
out of the land of milk and honey

to maggot land!
that's where you go!
you go straight to maggot land!

the light is green
the cars do not move, nor do the lines
and a man approaches

he beats your skull in
with a brick and takes from you
twenty-three cents and a cigarette

he festers away to a garbage can house
you call after him, 'thank you. finally. thank you."
he does not reply because

he is mute.

Did you READ a book, or READ (red) a book?

Did you ACCEPT a dollar or did you accept everything EXCEPT a dollar?

Did you produce enough DATE-AH or is DAT-AH all you got?

Let’s face it, the English language is remarkably difficult to use. There are 850,000 words in the English language, and new ones are being added every single day; words like LOL and Slumdog and Octomom and...monkey-handler. That’s just way too many fucking words.

But imagine if you could dumb it all down to one easy word and say everything you ever need to say in less than ten seconds! Don’t believe it? Believe me, it’s true. I’m talking about ZINGO!

Anyone can learn Zingo in one easy two-minute lesson. At the Zingo academy, Santa Fe student and ‘Zingo’, Tom Miller, will show you how to pronounce, spell, and say Zingo, and you’ll never struggle with words again.

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And kids, on a computer, just type ‘Z-dot’ for everything you’ll ever have to say.

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Act now and receive a Zingo dictionary called, Zingo. Zingo comes on a business card sized gold lacquered laminated piece of paper with the only word that matters: Zingo! Operators are standing by.

Let’s try this entire commercial again, only this time in Zingo.

Ready?

Zingo!

If you're ever getting a live lobster for dinner and you get to pick, pick the asshole. Pick the toughest one--the one who's bullying the others; the one waving his claws in the wind. Pick the one who says, when the wooden lobster-scoop sinks beneath the surface of the tank,  "I'll snap that shit in two!" Get that one. Get the asshole of the bunch. What's he gonna' do, scream or steam? In the end, you can say "No motherfucker, he's gonna deliver my butter!"

-- TM

he was having a wet dream
about a sexy woman about to bend over
when he rolled out of bed
fracturing his boner

he crawled to the phone
and pulled it off the counter
onto his head
along with a lamp

his wife found him
unconscious there
and drove him to the hospital
wrecking on the way with a boy on a bike

the ambulance took everyone
and in surgery to repair the damage
both the boy died and the penis was severed
one was the result of an epileptic seizure

when the nurse brought
the wrong medication
he was having a wet dream
about a sexy woman riding sidesaddle on his face

the stitches popped
hypersensitivity, angioedema, allergic rhinitis
he has brain damage now
and has forgotten everything

except for everything that went wrong
and also that his wife was praying
for God to forgive them
for everything else

     "I'm looking at an apple."

     "No you're not, I say. You're looking at a pear."

     "An apple, says I."

     "Support your claim with evidence."

     "Okay, you fuckin' maggot. We agree that both an apple and a pear are a plant ovary?"

     "No sir, we do not agree. Are we talking fruit here?"

     "It's a plant ovary, you cock-sucking wretched fat farting skunk-ape."

     "You already lost, dickhead. If it's an ovary, how's it going to be a pear? Or an apple for that matter?"

     "One thing is another, you Jew bastard."

     "I'm not Jewish. If I was, wouldn't I be black?"

     "I can't talk to you anymore."

     "Fine. I'm going to eat it anyway."

     "Go right ahead. You know what happened in the Bible. Chomp on it, bitch, see where it gets ya!"

     "That was a FIG! Not an APPLE you dumb retard!"

    

     Father to son, he looked him straight in the eyes.

     "Kid," he said, "I'm tryin' to tell ya' something. It's an angry world out there. You're gonna' see things you don't wanna' look at. But kid, I'm tellin ya' you gotta' look. You gotta' look right into the heart of darkness so you'll know what it means to be a man. You hear me? Hey kid, look at me when I'm talkin' to ya. You're gonna' need to wear your balls on your sleeve, kid. You need to stand up as a man and be counted. Don't be one of these pill pushers and don't be one of them lost 'nobodys' running in the street thinking your spray paint tag means you were here. I'm tellin' ya kid, wear your pants around your waist and tighten your up belt. You know what happens to them ghetto kids and them white suburban kids that keep their pants down around below their ass so's their underwear shows? They tie their legs up so they can't walk right. They trip and fall. And kid, I'm tellin' you this as a metaphor. A metaphor. Keep the needles outta' yer arm--and what that means is--don't see the world through a 'stupid' filter. You get me? You get me, kid? This here is the learnin' I got from being there, so I know what I'm talkin' about. And one more thing, kid. Go out there and find you a sweet old girl. Don't be with no hookers and skanks, pick a girl that knows a thing or two. Pick a girl that's loyal. Get a girl with a little money in her pocket so's you don't have to worry so much. It's not true what they say about women marrying rich. That's always a divorce waiting to happen, or a murder. No, kid. Get a rich old gal and give her as much love as you can. Even if yer' banging some schoolgirl on the side, just don't let her know about it or you'll fuck everything up. Get me, kid? So the lesson I'm giving you here is this: What's important is what people believe, not the truth. And there ain't no Heaven but pray anyway, every day. It'll give you a good feeling. It'll keep ya' humble. Kid? Are you getting this through your skull?"

     The kid looked uncomfortable and began to cry, shrill and like an animal.

     "Aw kid, don't cry. Did you make a poop? Did you poopie? Okay, kid. Okay. We'll take a break and I'll get that diaper changed. You know if your mom hadn't a been such a bitch and walked, she'd be doing this for ya." He peeled back the diaper and began to wipe."

    "Jesus Christ, what a mess."

back when soap
was made from people

we all wondered
what exactly 'clean' was

nowadays
soap is made by treating

fats with an alkaline solution
to achieve sopanification

some of this may simply be
the lies of propaganda

nothing ever really gets clean

low
dirt
shame

to think these things can get so hot
like the first toaster that cooked a grilled cheese sandwich;
are you kidding?

was it not good?
yes, i think it was.

now arteries appear,
what about us?

don't you want clean arteries?
we are moving stuff from one place to another,
don't you want us doing our thing?

the thing we were meant to do?
try life without fried food and you'll beg for
another chance to smoke

i suck the smoke
into my lungs and say
"someone's coming over"

if i get half a second to see
the sun peek over the horizon
to wink like a bordello whore
who wished for love and the way out

to look into her eyes and see
the beginning of time and maybe
somewhere in the middle

you figure it out
do the math
count the days between

what started and ended
and tell me

if a man walked on the moon
why can't I be pondered?

tiny pinches of sand from outer space
are carefully monitored

to make sure nobody gets the upper hand
if you have one of these

a fortune awaits
those who can wait
until nobody thinks it will be worth a damn to wait.

Wait for it...

Wait for it...


-- TM

    Kid is in the shit can, man. No money for gas, rent's late, credit cards are feeing the fees, and the bank might as well shoot him. He borrowed from friends, don't get me wrong. But now he's gotta' pay 'em too. And the pressure is on.

    So one day he's out under a tree meditating when something snaps. His face goes all flat, like all those little muscles that make smiles into frowns just gave it all up. And he's got this blankness going on. You could look at him and figure something opened the back door and parted ways. He's a cracked nutshell.

    The nutshell gets up and walks to the financial aid office. There's a huge line of people just like him; a line of empty vessels with hollow stares. He takes his place and if the line could move any slower, it would be a black and white photograph of potatoes. He does the math in his head...five minutes per person, twenty four people...this'll take me about an hour twenty. Fuck me.

    An hour fifty passes and he's rounded the corner, the other corner, made it to the line after the line, and now he's next. "Next" a squat brown woman barks. Kid takes his place in the open stall. "How can I help you today?" She asks.

    "How's about you just shut the fuck up and sit there, you dirty cunt. Don't do a fucking thing for me and that way I'll get the same results I ever got outta' this fucking dump and you won't have to even work at it. Just sit there and watch me whither and die."

     "Security!" He didn't go easy, he went ugly.

     Kid is in the shit can now, man. No money for gas, rent's late, credit cards are feeing the fees, and the bank might as well shoot him. But at least for the moment, there's nothing he can do about it. That's the good news. In this college he gets three squares, a cot, one hell of an education, and all the sex he never wanted.