The Plaka, Athens, 1965

WHAT I WRITE NOW…




…is mostly made up but when I die it will be thought of as true; future readers will look back at my non-adventurous life of drunken, drugged-out ease and actually believe I lived large and played hard when in fact I barely left home…although my imagination frequently went out…truth is I’ve spent most of the last six decades trying to figure out how to get by without actually working, I almost got it down to a science; it takes persistence and you have to compromise, but if you’re any good at what you do you’ll someday reap the bennies & eventually you’ll make money, so to that end I am in hot pursuit…I’m a successful writer without a dime…ditto painter, that’s it though, those are my only two real successes, but many people go through life without any.



SUDDENLY THE MEANING OF ‘IT’ BECAME ABUNDANTLY CLEAR…



…and I immediately and for days on end plunged into and was drowning in the sea of despair, morbid in deepest Kafkaesque despondency; it’s too late to change anything, the damage is done. The future is certain, the end is near…



…and that Dear Reader is where I’ve stayed humorlessly (until about 30 minutes ago) for the last two dope-free weeks after a run-in with 911 and a nighttime visit by the EMTs from Grace Cottage, Lou & Scott…to whom I am heavily indebted…so okay I had a major choking spell, nothing new there…but withal I quit smoking reefer - only nothing seems to have changed except my attitude has gone from not-very-good-anyway to bad to worse to worst, so moments ago I said well frig this Dude, choke to death or not, I’m having a toke, and did, and the improvement was immediate - life again is good, my semi-positive attitude and equilibrium return…on balance, it’s a trade-off but what in life isn’t? …Dude, I mean I was so bummed out by this whole scenario I was like a zombie, immobilized, could not seem to rise above it, had no interest even in writing NOTES which for 21 years has been my catalyst, not to mention my raison d’etre and bete noir all in one…a package deal, but even NFTD couldn’t carry me over this one so I spun up a fatty and got right…my love-hate relationship with a life of dissipation continues apace.

ONCE I THOUGHT THE WORLD WOULD…




…be mine, that my talents at painting and writing, my savoir faire and cosmopolitan outlook, erudition and all-around cool demeanor would carry the day, that I would be surrounded by my minions like a magnet is surrounded by iron filings, but, ah, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum…actually not that funny but justice nonetheless at every turn, just another step on the well-worn path to obscurity; like Marlon Brando, “…I coulda been a contendah…” but I was busy doing nothing much except floundering in the twilight of a mediocre career.



…I haffta laff from this vantage point although 30 years ago when I was still in the running but could see the way things were going I wouldn’t have been quite so sanguine…hmmmm...sanguine is that the right word…hmmm…ah, here it is: sanguine, confident. No that won’t do, I have little confidence and have ever been thus. If you live on the streets covered with lice and sleeping with rats as I once did for waaay too long, your confidence tends to wane and never came back in my case.



…with a huge yeasty eructation burp – we are talking explosive - Doug, who had been called on to give the opening toast at this prestigious gathering of Lander’s aristocracy, such as it was, but who had gotten a little drunk first said, instead of his prepared speech, ‘Let the drinking, belching and fun begin!’ as Joann, his mortified wife, tried to go invisible…



FROM GROWN TO GROAN…



…is not much of a stretch; youth was over in a heartbeat and old age drags interminably along, well, not quite…when you’re young you think old is some ethereal & distant abstraction but when you’re old and frothing-at-the-mouth while groaning, and trying not to tremble with fear at the gaping maw of Mother Earth lying in wait for (us)me, well, I ask you Dear Reader, is it – alone and palely loitering all by itself – enough reason to drink? Ergo, to quote The Bard, I shall partake of the demon alcohol ‘…til sense and sorrow both are drowned…’ Ahh yes, much better…like Nation’s, the place to be, or not to be dependent on your beliefs.



…I thought so, well then, let us(me) open this here bottle of Cooks’ Sparkling Champagne – and for you My Dear, spare no expense Love, nothing for you but the best, top of the line bubbly, $6.99 a bottle, Lass, please, please My Dear don’t thank me, was/is a pleasure, o and while you’re up Lass, mayhap a couple glasses…after which the reality of your (my) indispensability is rendered moot. Where once all lay ahead in wait, now lies behind in ruins. Who knew?

RANDOM “…NOTES…” FROM WRINKLED SCRAPS…

…remember! In a year from now you could be sitting in the docket awaiting your sentence of death by tribunal for your avowed views and lifestyle, no matter what they are. No one is exempt, it all depends – your living or dying on the scaffold – on who’s calling the shots. In my case, loathsome, hypocritical and disgusting though their actions may be, I’d rather the Democrats and Republicans run this show than some scimitar-wielding Algerian Fundamentalists who want to hack off my tattooed arms because they are an affront to Allah…so whereas I bitch and moan and carp about things in this world I can do so only because the Reps and the Dems are ‘in charge’ (whatever that means) and as long as they are and not the Afghani Taliban or some other cult of death, I’m relatively safe, for now…

…life without radio, television or newspapers is a sea of tranquility…far quieter, none of that nerve-shattering hyperbolic claptrap to rattle your cerebellum, and if you think about radio and television they are both chock-full, 24 hours a day year-round without surcease, of junk and newspapers and magazines too but without the attendant noise…and speaking of junk – a recent four-state volunteers attempt to cleanup the banks of the mighty Queen of Rivers, The Connecticut River, flowing North to South through the Great Granite State of New Hampshire and Vermont, The Green Mountain State, thence between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and The Nutmeg State, Connecticut, and finally pouring into the Atlantic, yielded 500 bags of trash and tons upon tons of – get this! - “…whole trucks and cars, numerous car parts, plumbing fixtures, roofing materials, chunks of concrete, metal scraps and pipes, styrofoam, kitchen appliances, bed frames, mattresses, tvs, tarps, kiddie pools, toys, fishing equipment, and some hazardous materials like hypodermic needles and 55 gallon drums containing unknown substances…” Humans waging war on Mother Earth.

BUMMER - GRAY SKY FADING AWAY, SUN COMING OUT...

…s’posed to be a bright sunshiny day which drives a lugubrious, solitary & morose me – around the bend…a lachrymose day made for introspection and reflection and then, done with this melancholy, maybe off to golf or swimming or, not to put too fine a point on it, laying around the shanty with the shades drawn and putting a good package on with choice indica and a bottle or two of Cook’s California Champagne, which I don’t care if they vint it and bottle it in Newark just so’s I get some now and then, speaking of which I’ll have to give my bootlegger a call…bootlegging is an art form the skill of which I do not possess, but he does…in concelebration of all these (no)things, I blast a cork across the room and bounce it off the Holstein on my refrigerator. Quoting seldom-seen Doug Misner, I intone, ‘Let the drinking, belching and fun begin!’

Like a blow on the head from a hammer...

…the news Whitney Houston is dead leaves me dizzy, she was so the star! Everything about her was good; even her bad was good. Another world-class performer bites the dust. Whitney knew what she was doing but she miscalculated the amount she took thus ending her dazzling career.

…it’s like losing someone you actually know. Most everyone over the age of, say, 13 knows drugs and alcohol don’t mix but we do it anyway. From a very early age self-destruction begins. It’s what we do. What’s up with that? I don’t think a dozen Sigmund Freuds could figure it out.

…and if you don’t get you before someone else does you have to dig your bunker deeper and keep your head down so you don’t get caught in the crossfire; please don’t think I’m a mindless twit prattling on after a bottle of wine and a bone, which I am, but rather as a prescient voice from subterranea…which I also am. Whitney, I will always love you…I can’t believe you’re gone!

NOTE FROM A READER…

‘Ahhh, for Christ's sake...get the f**k over it. Your boredom is becoming your readers' boredom. You've been places, you've met people…how about writing 'bout them/there? No one cares about how many sheets of toilet paper you might use daily...nor how much you might drink or smoke each day. Get BACK to being 'interesting' & f**k a bunch of BIG words…just write shit that matters.’

(Well, I can’t please everybody but I will try to do as bade…thanks for taking the time to write me in the vernacular…)

NOTES FROM THE DUMP by Terry Ward

IT'S TROUBLING IN A WAY...

…I’ve written nothing or at least very little for a long time, months; much of last year all of this year. Lots of things come to mind on which to remark but I’m of a mind these days to say, why bother, who cares, indeed - what’s the sense of anything…

…hours pass, blank hours I hide in playing Scrabble, cribbage, cribbage, Scrabble, crabble, scribbage, bibble babble, say, pass that pipe over here and please pour us another glass of champagne Love, do come sit closer…

…in another way it’s not troubling, consider: not taking time out to write has left me many hours available in which to pursue the nefarious pleasures of life in the subterranean breakdown lane, i.e. drink some of (quite a bit of) Cook’s Sparkling Wine (see Page 1), eating until stuporous, running up the phone bill and smoking herb ‘til blue smoke emanates simultaneously from every orifice above the neck.