Wednesday, May 27, 2009

A Best Friend

My best friend Jeanne died last nite.
Here's what I got right now.

Very best friends
I've got a few
lost one just last nite
They're the ones, when gone
you got nothing but honey
not one single regret that sticks
of course i wish this and that
one more time for sure i do
one more hug, kiss, dinner, weekend
yes i do baby
like nobody's business i do
but when i reach inside with tears on my cheeks
i find nothing but honey
you sweet, sweet memory of mine
my best so far.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Customer Service Training

We had two mornings of mandatory training on Customer Service this week at the office. It's difficult when you work for the government, all the customers are forced to pay. Lord help us. Anyway, my notes are above. As with all my doodles, these are best viewed from all four angles.

Lonesome Traveler

I just finished this book today and I must say many of his sentences were a bit much, particularly since some things in life should not run on over several pages in my opinion except maybe once or twice, but really, where’s the damn period, it’s just a city street scene for goodness sakes and so all in all I did not enjoy as much of this one as much as On The Road, but in both I like Jack the most when he’s alone, in Washington State watching for fire, top of a remote mountain praying to God, or his trip to Africa and Europe seeing God everywhere he can spin together thoughts and words and sounds and sights and prayers and songs bravely sweet and kind, like a poet and you know how poets are, wanting so much all the damn time.

Of course I want to travel alone, and be free.

From the last chapter, page 173.

There's nothing nobler than to put up with a few inconveniences like snakes and dust for the sake of absolute freedom.

I myself was a hobo only of sorts, as you see, because I knew someday my literary efforts would be rewarded by social protection - I was not a real hobo with no hope ever except that secret eternal hope you get sleeping in empty boxcars flying up the Salinas Valley in hot January sunshine full of Golden Eternity toward San Jose where mean-looking old bo's 'll look at you from surly lips and offer you something to eat and a drink too - down by the tracks or in the Guadaloupe Creekbottom.

The original hobo dream was best expressed in a lovely little poem mentioned by Dwight Goddard on his Buddhist Bible:

Oh for this one rare occurrence
Gladly would I give ten thousand pieces of gold!
A hat is on my head, a bundle on my back,
And my staff, the refreshing breeze and the full moon.

[Picture of Jack found here.]

Monday, May 18, 2009

Walmart Take 2

I dared my favorite poet to write a poem about Walmart. She did. Now, my response. I'm really not all that mad about Walmart. It is a friggin Zoo though for sure.

I grab my cart and a wipe
it's clean now and ready to knock
up and down the aisles, with its own
navigational system in that one front
wheel with the black plastic cover and
2 pounds of grocery store grime.

the beginning of my lesson today, breath.
I've come for stuff on the cheap,
lord knows I don't need to
I've come for something else too

Like an anthroplogist and a zen monk
i come to observe
us in a sea of stuff we want
I've come to give up certain parts of myself
the unskillful ways,
I've come to practice being us, nothing else.

the check-out line is the clencher,
the master has given me a pop-quiz.
What's wrong with right now?

Not Bad

I've been wanting to make (well eat, actually) this quiche since the magazine showed up last month. Got around to it last nite, nailed it pretty close the first time. I got 12 sheets of phyllo dough left, come on over for some pie!

Here's the latest stuff from your bobJuan.

one of the things I like most about fiction
often, there's sex.

the cat just walked in the house carrying half the yard in her tail.

If my bank closed, it's not like I'm out that much cash.

I'm here to tie your kangaroo down, Sport.

rules are for suckers
and I mean that in
the kindest of ways
we're only around for a few minutes
straighten up and fly right
off the map into the
madness of love
you're only one change away
from everything you really want
wantlessness
no, really
the hardest easiest thing
in the world
complete acceptance.

Now that I figured out I'm not gonna have a different life,
this one's it
there's no more waiting
what a relief
I'm all over this
all hell is breaking loose.

Damn this new PC.
I'm gonna have to teach Microsoft Office my language again. Custom.dic is up for a big lesson. I forgot to tell Cathy about Microsoft Office 2007 when we got this thing. I hope to not be around the first time she sees those ribbons!

Until next time.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Metsito & More

La Curva. The only place for breakfast in Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point). We had a wonderful 2 days in Rocky Point. We haven't been going down much these past few years, last time was Eli & Amber's Wedding for me. It turns into an orgy of tortillas, salsa, frijoles, margaritas, burritos, naps, and all manners of hedonisms when I don't goes often enoughs. One big scrambling yeeehawww. Here's some Jack Kerouac on Mexico.

p. 21 - Lonesome Traveller. ... -- but the moment you cross the little wire gate and you're in Mexico, you feel like you just sneaked out of school when you told the teacher you were sick and she told you you could go home, 2 o'clock in the afternoon. -- You feel as though you just come home from Sunday morning church and you take off your suit and slip into your soft worn smooth cool overalls, to play -- .. It's a great feeling of entering the Pure Land, especially because it's so close to dry faced Arizona and Texas and all over the Southwest - but you can find it, this feeling, this fellaheen feeling about life, that timeless gayety of people not involved in great cultural and civilization issues .. Mexico is generally gentle and fine, even when you travel among the dangerous characters as I did -- "dangerous" in the sense we mean in America -- in fact the further you go away from the border, and deeper down, the finer it is, as though the influence of civilizations hung over the border like a cloud.

Now some bobJuan stuff:

From the dearly departed files: My friend Martha lost her husband Michael recently. All my precious thoughts and love for you and your family babes.

You have to read, as it turns out, to be well read.

From the news recently: Doctors said one man was bitten on the hand after trying to pet a snake. They said the man had been drinking prior to the incident. (I wish I had a dime for everytime...)

Quit resisting resistancelessness.

Why are matters of life and death always taken so seriously?

I've decided to put all my eggs in one basket.

How come there's so much bad information in my blood?
Makes me glad I declined the piss test.

Were the pandemics before television?

I am another bit of living proof, you can live totally happy on less than $100,000 a year.

And from some real people:

Self is realized through selflessness. Lao-Tsu.

Outside of poetry there is no Zen, outside of Zen there is no poetry. Ten'in Ryutaku.

That's it for this time.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Back from Mexico

We're back, stories to come.   Beautiful beautiful beautiful.  Stories to come.  We didn't have any trouble with the flu or drug warfare..  Or so far, no other bugs from eating all local, all the time.