The Drum

The deep primitive drumbeat rises from the black earth and commands you to step in rhythm -- now faster faster until you are no longer you. Have you become Davy Jones (wait a moment) or Tom Selleck or John Malkovich? Yes, in fact you are all of them. You are the drum.

As it is in the beginning and ever shall be, you sacrifice your flesh and yourself to the beat of eternity. This is not so bad. The blessings of life, the people dancing with you, are your reward.

Advice from an old notebook

Actually the notebook is less than a year old, and this entry was probably written in late Spring. I found it yesterday under the lava lamp. I guess I was trying to infuse it with the primeval and then forgot. But Spring feels long ago. It's chilly, and I'm wearing a fleece.

Write as if it's the last thing you will ever write, but do not use your own blood unless you have to. Do not disparage passion with cool -- cool becomes cold. Bust up the status quo. It's yellow. It's cowardice. Exit in a burst of stars.

It's okay to mourn the past, but impossible to re-create it, except through a bit of food and a song. Live your present moment and try to improve the future for those you care about. Do this through writing.

Good advice. Why not become a crazy person, or at least stop concealing it?

Admission, which comes first

You are my muse, especially when you are silly and awkward, when you blurt out something truly mis-timed that silences the room. Old ladies shrink into their wrinkles. Sometimes I'm the only one laughing because I don't really believe in dignity. It's a form of frigidity.

For me, you are creative spontaneity. It's not something you control. It just is. You release euphoria in me: I am a spring flower. When I bloom, boundaries dissolve and we can all share each other. That's what God wants, I'm pretty sure.

Safety First

A couple cocktails as I cook is safe, except when the recipe calls for me to drive or operate heavy machinery, like when I make tractor spaghetti, even though the meatball pile is just out back and the oregano can be harvested with one brief pass of a chainsaw, and you know I've been feeding the tomatoes Miracle Gro since February, intravenously. Abstention is a fair price to pay for getting to use my ceramic-lined superheated swimming pool.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: I've made steaks and roasted vegetables, two dips, four kinds of chips, and bought a thousand drinks, but no guests show up to the party.

Solution: Eat dips off my chest with chips, eat steaks in the bathtub, open a tin of anchovies, drink naked and talk to the moon.

Complication: The moon is a policeman's flashlight, and I was eating the steak off a Viagra kabob.
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