X Marks the Spot

When I grow my hair and kiss your neck, that will be my unmistakable
confession.

I hope you catch it.

Dames

What you gonna do.

- BuddhaDave

Eight Tom Waits

It's memories that I'm stelaing, but you're innocent when you dream, when you dream. You're innocent when you dream.

With a promise and a vow, and a lullaby for my brow, Jesus gonna be here. Be here soon. I got to keep my eyes open so I can see my Lord. I'm gonna watch the horizon for a brand new Ford. I can hear him rolling on down the lane. I said Hollywood be thy name. I'm gonna leave this place better than the way I found it was. And Jesus gonna be here. Gonna be here soon.

They're dancing on the roof and the ceiling's coming down. I sleep with my shovel and my leather gloves. A little trouble makes it worth the going. And a little rain never hurt no one. The world is round, and so I'll go around. You must risk something that matters. My hands are strong, I'll take any man here. If it's worth the going it's worth the ride. And a little rain never hurt no one.

Seems like folks turn into things that they'd never want. The only thing to live for is today... I'm gonna put a hole in my TV set. I don't wanna grow up. Open up the medicine chest. And I don't wanna grow up. When I see the 5 o'clock news I don't wanna grow up. Comb their hair and shine their shoes. I don't wanna grow up. Stay around in my old hometown, I don't wanna put no money down, I don't wanna get me a big old loan, work them fingers to the bone. I don't wanna float a broom, fall in love and get married then boom, how the hell did I get here so soon. I don't wanna grow up.

It always comes and finds you. It will always hear you cry. I cross my wooden leg and I swear on my glass eye. It will never leave you high and dry, never leave you loose. Its harder to get rid of than tattoos. But theres one thing you cant do, is lose that feel.

It's more than rain that falls on our parade tonight. It's more than thunder, it's more than thunder. And it's more than goodbye I have to say to you. It's more than woe-be-gotten grey skies now.

Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town. I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past. So send me off to bed forever more.

And they all pretend they're orphans and their memory's like a train: You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away. And the things you can't remember to the things you can't forget. That history puts a saint in every dream. The boys just dive right off the cars and splash into the street, and when they're on a roll she pulls a razor from her boot and a thousand pigeons fall around her feet.

I'm all alone. I smoke my friends down to the filter. But I feel much cleaner after it rains. Did the Devil make the world while God was sleeping?

My head is spinning round, my heart is in my shoes. Well I see that the world is upside-down. Seems that my pockets were filled up with gold. And now the clouds, well they've covered over and the wind is blowing cold. Well I don't need anybody, because I learned, I learned to be alone. Well I said anywhere, anywhere, anywhere I lay my head, boys. Well I gonna call my home.

So hush little baby, daddy must go. I’ll cover you up with a blanket of snow. By the time I make Jersey you’ll be in heaven, in a pretty blue shoe box, I know. So sing a song of ten grand with a pocket full of dough. And I can’t take you to Baltimore. Wake God up in heaven, have him look down below. There’s a little lost angel blooming in the snow.

If I fall asleep in your arms, please wake me up in my dreams.

- BuddhaDave

Good First Sentences

My book on writing (Writing Down the Bones) says to try and start with a good first sentence. I thought of some today and figured I go from there and list random strong thoughts I have.

• What a terrible thing it is to be in love.
• My hands are beautiful.
• Today I locked up my brakes for a pair of quails before even registering they were there.
• If I stop chasing completely, what I was chasing captures me.
• I hate that apparently I'm becoming a nervous smoker.
  
• All the strangers in LA think I'm cute.
• Long distance driving is wonderful.
• I'm a student of the Lazy Zen School of Enlightenment Through Cuddling.
• I'll carry around this little bronze Buddha forever.
• I'm in love with the world, but sometimes it doesn't notice me.
  
• My biggest guilt is I cannot get out of bed to save my life. Seriously.
• I've been carrying a huge crush.
• I want to have no job but walking around, writing, and pressing myself to the ground.
• All my friends are offline.
• Unbeknownst to even me until recently, I want to pray all day to everything.
• I hope everything I write and say isn't geared at getting you to like me.

- BuddhaDave

Sometimes life is a bowling ball in the pit of your stomach. Heavy and cold and foreign like a rock when you expect a warm soft hand.

Maybe its all the lies. I've been telling big ones lately. I just watched Lord of War. I think I understand him. I've also just watched The Life Aquatic. It hit me in that spot I can't flex like it did when life didn't make sense and was all fucked up and dream-like. I love that movie and I love getting it, but I don't love the feeling that has to be there for it to happen.

The good part of that story is he gets life to make sense again. Or maybe he just stops trying. And then it does anyway. I seem to go through that in waves. I'm the old selfish prick who only wants to stop the awful foreignness of his life. Then I'm the old man who lets it play out and finds his shark. I always cry at that part. I wonder if it remembers me, too.

Lies are like Pringles. You can't have just one. One starts a whole chain of them, each having to support the other. Nothing in this world is an island; unaffected and unsupported by something else. Why do we think lies can be? Just this one isolated pillar of a lie, and that's it. But then we go along and before you know it you have a whole Roman city. Can't tell just one. There's no such thing as just one.

Desires are just like that. Each one props up one hundred more and one hundred more for those one hundred. One scoop isn't enough. One girl, one solid relationship, one adventure and one last look are never just one.

We are made for greed. We can have so much but still get bored. Its locked up safe and secure in our garage at home and then its boring. The movie we don't yet own, the new car, that girl who looked us up and down are way better than the things safe and secure. We have them. Fun's over.

Our minds are made to gather. Its what makes us survive. When that gets to the current century it becomes dangerous. Cancerous. We have food and shelter out the wazoo. The mind goes crazy looking for stuff to do its job on. Unchecked it gets mansions, three cars, a mistress, and debt.

Can biology be fought? We hear of people that seem to do just that but I don't know if I believe it. The mind is clever. Cleverness incarnate and infinitely intricate. It doesn't care much about the content, just the structure. Maybe its not girls or cars but knowledge or accomplishments or yoga positions. Battles won.

No matter how much we have safe in our cupboards and closets there's always more outside in the wide world to quest for. Home is dark and forgotten. Translucent and ephemeral compared to the blinding rays of What's Out There. Its always there on the horizon, beaming out at us, bidding us, compelling us to follow after it. Once we get there we are happy until we turn and see the rays have moved beyond the hills again.

Should I pick up my feet or rest my bones? Vague ideas but never known.

- BuddhaDave