Fifty Ways to Leave Mama Pajama

The bartender who brought over my Coors Light, which she said was the only kind of beer they had, was a scowling 300-pound gorilla of a woman who looked like she had just rolled out of bed. When I asked her name she pointed at a nametag that read: Hello My Name is Mama Pajama.

The peroxide blonde sitting on my right turned to me and asked, “Hey big boy, why don’t you buy me a drink? In case yer wondering, I’m Rosie, the Queen of Corona.”

I ordered her what she requested, a blended whiskey and root beer. And then I put my head in my hands and muttered, “I’m in hell.”

Rosie chuckled as she pulled my head up by my hair. Twisting my neck to the left, she said, “Do ya see that blotto priest sitting down at the end of the bar. Well that’s the Radical Preacher. Ya don’t think the powers that be would let him anywheres near the Pearly Gates, do ya?”

I sat quietly for a moment, bemoaning my fate. But Rosie wasn’t having any of that. She said, “Come on, pal. Drink up. Drink up. We don’t have all night. We’ez got business to transact. What’s it gonna be? A blowjob is fifty. A simple fuck is a hundred. Back door action is two-fifty. Anything kinkier than that is more.”

When I still didn’t respond, she turned on the faucets. Much more softly she implored, “I’ze got a big nut to make. You don’t know Julio. He’s my pimp. If I come up short he’s going to hurt me so bad I won’t be able to sit comfortably for a week. And it won’t show on my skin. That creep knows all of the no-show torture routines.”

When I finally made my purchase decision and we were heading out of the bar, Rosie took my arm and whispered in my ear, “It’s not so much Julio that I’m scared of, as that psycho killer, so-called singer he hangs out with. Now that guy is the creep of the century. I’m afraid he’s going to either slit my throat or bore me to death.”

We walked on in silence for a bit. Then Rosie fingered the lapel of my jacket, smiled coquettishly, and said, “Ya seem like a nice guy. How about ya taking me to a totally different universe where we can both make a new start. I heard of this cozy little Italian restaurant where we can get a bottle of red and a bottle of white. They even got checkered tablecloths and all.”

As I reflected that it couldn't possibly be any worse than this dump of a universe, I turned to Rosie, kissed her gently on the lips, and said, "Let's do it."

70s Foursome

Imagine.
Two couples in a hot tub
in the Hollywood Hills.
And afterwards:

The Captain & Yoko.

The Plastic Tennille Band

(Oh, To-o-o-neeeee…).

To quote Sir Mick:

“It’s only rock and roll/

but I like it.”

A Poem

Critique of Performance Poetry

Why

use

one 

word

when

twenty

will 

do.

Ponzi Scheme

For the past decade the nefarious Wilpons have perpetrated an emotional Ponzi Scheme on Mets fans. Fair market value for a majority interest in the franchise is currently one cracked bat and one soiled George Foster baseball card.

A Review of Passes Through by Rob Stephenson

My response to Passes Through, in my initial reading and on subsequent visits, can best be characterized as a species of wild joy. Dipping into it unfailingly produces an exhilaration that I suspect alters my brain chemistry in ways that parallel the workings of various illicit psychoactive substances but exact less of a toll. While engulfed in the mind-engine that Rob Stephenson has built one can surf a higher-dimensional ocean of linguistic possibility and emerge, kahuna-like, back on the shore one’s own (literary, in my case) practice. That my approach to writing fiction is less “experimental” and “innovative” than his doesn’t in any way lessen the impact his work has on me.

Passes Through follows along a trajectory of the history of the novel that arcs from Don Quixote (Cervantes) to Tristram Shandy (Sterne) to the trilogy composed of Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable (Beckett).  Any close reading of these past masters will put to rest the old canard that the novel must have some kind of consensually recognized conventional structure. Although, on a macro level, Passes Through, like its forbears, doesn’t have any kind of conventional structure, on a micro level it actually has hundreds, if not thousands, of snippets of conventional structures, and they all whoosh away just as the reader begins to assimilate their presence. You are always anticipating that next wave, trying hard to ride the big one(s) and stay on your board. This is part of what makes reading Passes Through such a unique and thrilling experience.

But putting aside for the moment any other reasons why you might want to purchase and read Passes Through, keep in mind that it is extremely funny from cover to cover. I do not think it would be going too far to call it a comic masterpiece.

Dance Street

Oprah Has Huge Areolas

Cum Shot

I like to think of the slush puddle as an urban snowstorm's cum shot.

Diddy Sucks

There appears to be a difference of opinion between graffiti artists #1 and #2 on the merits of Diddy.

Eric Wintermute/Drug Addict

I took this photo on Christmas Day on MacDougal Street just south of Houston Street.