alternate take 1
the people who love you are crazy they can’t help it really they can’t they are those teenaged girls in wet auditorium seats hysterical before the beatles only you are in a high chair with chocolate smeared across your face or sweating in a bright red high school football uniform on the sidelines NOT in a nice three button English cut suit or cuban heels but IT DOESN’T MATTER the people who love you are teenaged girls and you are the beatles you with snot flowing in a nightmarish diaper set to vertigo or lurching lumbering across an auditorium stage clutching a diploma grinning like a monster the people who love you the mother father aunts uncles grandparents are like teenaged girls and you are the beatles and like the beatles you have no idea what to do with the oversized beachball comet of love that chases you down high streets or shocks you like a microphone and when you find yourself racing thru the picadilly circus of your mind while chased by all that love you might leap into a limo and look at the john that is you and the paul that is you and the ringo that is you and the george that is you and mutually realize as the love pounds ferociously on the tear stained limousine window that you have no idea what the fuck is going on.
alternate take 2
he hitched across the usa when he was 14 this was in the early part of last century his parents and loving sisters told him he was crazy he said they were and hit the road someone/something must have told him it was gonna be alright I never asked him why he wasn’t worried about getting lynched I suspect he was conscious of the possibility but wasn’t about to let a possibility harsh his mellow besides he was a good talker
alternate take 3
pour thick black liquid slowly let it flow slowly flow like in slow motion into a tall thin glass but in real slow motion structuralist film slow slow like Michael Snow slow like oil seeping slow like “the blob†creeping like black hand lotion peeping it in slow motion at a gallery show you know like taking all the shit you know or think you know and just making it go slow so slow that you can take a better look at it so that you might literally SEE what you know
alternate take 4
when it got to the point where we couldn’t keep track of which bad boyfriend she was complaining about we knew it was time to start communicating via postcards
alternate take 5
“lets boogie†was on the back of the jean jacket but the “t†was kinda messed up from too many over-anxious black middle class washings so it read “Ler’s Boogie†which actually sounded pretty freaky so hey miss ida are your shoes too suede and too blue to ballet dance across my living room I mean isn’t the fact that I live one block north of Pico enough to peak your interest? For if you would just allow me to thaw out this mack of mine this frozen drag of mine this “me too†gesture that I’m pestering you with? Ok but on the serious side – its really a mess in the street right about now and besides I have a black light poster of joe tex in the hallway. Oh you wanna see that? Cool. Well, its special. Yes, well you know one has connections.
alternate take 6
so can we leave the guitars in the van in this neighborhood OF COURSE YOU CAN and he laughs at the fact that we’re asking and the bathroom sink is the biggest we’ve seen in all of England and it must be 3 in the morning and homes like this make us whisper we might even be whispering were it 12 noon because after days of clopping across parking lot concrete and wooden stages the soft quicksand carpet makes you feel as if yer floating walking feels like turning pages and the family photos seem precariously balanced and I’m worried about knocking things over as I’m cloaked in the regional bitter
alternate take 7
spring day spring day we’re gonna sit here the whole damn day in this kreuzberg café and dare the day to pass quickly may we feel this good, this blessed, be this well dressed with the sunshine, the coffee, the bi-lingual waiter and all the rest tell the kid how that used to be east and this used to be west
alternate take 8
point: the live-in-butler Eggbert was in no way surprised he’d deliver the new york times on a tray with some espresso and a tip for the day pull the curtains and ask if anything or anyone needed to be taken away
counterpoint: the cross is everywhere like when she stands with her arms stretched out to the side and when she leaves a message saying do you wanna hang out and you think christ that would be nice
alternate take 9
“you can only be as lonely as you like†she said. “that’s not true†he said. “prove it†she said. “you just did†he said.
alternate take 10
broom closet buddies or hey how about the 8th floor in the physics dept. they leave early its empty they have taken temporary leave of their senses or is it sanity…senses…sanity…this elevator is going slow enough for them to think maybe this is a bad idea…no, wait…they KNOW it’s a bad idea…is this the 8th floor? Ok, lets go
alternate take 11
if everywhere you go after you leave home makes you feel like you’ve come home then why’d you go back to where you came from which never seems to feel like home I mean home is not just what feels familiar its also about what feels right and about how fresh the bread is.
alternate take 12
vortext of love come step right in here is your torch don’t mind the din