if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah

Do you remember days gone by
When car songs ruled the radio
Think about the passing years
Where did these songs all go?
Little Honda, Duece Coupe
I miss my GTO
I miss the beach boy harmony
Where did the car songs go?

The Little Old Lady From Pasadena
My Hot Rod Lincoln...oh
Daddy took my t-bird away
Where did my car songs go?

Way back in the sixties
The car song, it was boss
Where has the music travelled
It's this generations loss

Do you remember days gone by
When car songs ruled the radio
Think about the passing years
Where did these songs all go?
Little Honda, Duece Coupe
I miss my GTO
I miss the beach boy harmony
Where did the car songs go?


Hot Rods, and dune buggies
The cars would go go go
Where are the car songs hiding
Does anybody know?

I miss my barracuda
My "Woody"  was the bomb
There's nothing out there like it
Where has the car song gone?

The music they are playing
Just puts me fast asleep
I need to hear my car song
No more "Rolling In The Deep"

Do you remember days gone by
When car songs ruled the radio
Think about the passing years
Where did these songs all go?
Little Honda, Duece Coupe
I miss my GTO
I miss the beach boy harmony
Where did the car songs go?

Sights and sounds of the sixties

Soon you will be going to the class reunion I over exaggerate as you head for the door I think my kids
Think I not only read ally Oop in the comic strip they act like I knew him personally. Here is what they
Don’t know let’s start easy when you’re setting in the country club and there is a lull listen with your mind
It not that far to the end of the golf course from the west south corner to the first road that is an eighth
Of a mile every hot rod man or girl already knows that. Play the song GTO in your head going to shut
Them down GTO. Listen to Jims engine howl he had it stroked and bored out in Taylorville you can do
that when daddy owns a bar to bad howl will turn to sobs really. Glen’s driving a dodge cornet with an
automatic on the floor sixty six factory line job you wouldn’t know it by looking Glen blew him away
coming out of the hole never touched or came close at top end Glen was a lone well I told you what Jim
was doing.
Strain a little more you can hear a fifty five chevy leaving the Dog & Suds headed for Elvers Skating rink
he floors it finally he lets it back off what a sound as that glass pack muffler rips the night air see any
Dinosaurs got rid of that old feeling yet. Out on the street here comes the bad with a capital B Lee miller
Is driving his fifty five Chevy burnished brown all the chrome plus the door handles are gone inside and out it is a
Dream are you getting it yet I’m talking about your achievements. Kenny Krivage is over at Rocks burning
cigarettes through five dollar bills on his arm before he was just a good looking kid then the sixties got
Him you were either at rocks or hiding from those that went there. Lot safer drinking cherry coke with
Janice at the hometown cafe even Karate didn’t protect you at rocks the Neece kid even taught it but
when you got a fist of fives coming at your head it not time for theory its time for action. Who can forget
the pied piper Jim Handy was the shortest guy in town unless you were in the first grade but the gang of
six foot behemoths that were his constant companions were hard to miss it must have been how the
poles felt when they saw the Germans on the march. They had a menacing sound long before they laid a
little love on you, your life’s last moments filled with terror until you realized they turned the corner and
went another way how selfish you felt as you sang someone else is going to die today give me a fire
breathing dragon any day. Poor oh pop sinnard never got any business just one kid drinking a vanilla
shake his special thin hamburger I bet that guy could get a hundred burgers out of a pound of ground round
well the pin ball machine was wide open I guess the kid got even for the hamburger there was a certin
Song on the juke box something about eighteen miners scrambled from a would be grave there he stood
all alone Big bad John. Let me tell you Pop knew it he heard it every day I think he stated crying for the
miners one day or was something else on his mind.
Well I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about what was going on in the other part of the country west
coast on 101 going to Frisco going south 101 on the other side Jan and Dean the Beach boys came a live
for a mile and a half every blond guy and girl and all the hot rod chromed out zooped up cars of every
Description was headed to Laguna Seca to the races all the while we were in a Volkswagen bug military
haircuts civies on we looked like a bunch of confused narks like were going to fool any one in that car
And garb we were wearing not to worry hippies are not long on thinking especially when they stood on
the corner in the height and Ahbury in broad day light selling *** for a nickel a lid slang for five bucks you could get
small glad bag of Royal Gold hashish or do what the winos do get a bottle of thunderbird or ripple what
ever know this Wolf Man Jack is blasting the air waves from Mexico since he violated the rules our hero the
man could talk jive and if you were high you thought he was divine I guess you surmise I wasn’t a
Christian at this low point in my life but the Monterey Pop festival was in full swing. The line up Janis
Joplin Jimmy Hendricks mama and the Papas Otis Redding of Dock of the Bay fame and a cast of
Thousands of hippies you couldn’t find a bare spot down town Monterey sidewalks grass the kind you
walk on doorways every where a hippie and not a bar of soap among them. Know this you have been
tamed by time and age but to duck your head forget it this world won’t see your kind again.

Sights and sounds of the sixties
Soon you will be going to the class reunion I over exaggerate as you head for the door I think my kids
Think I not only read ally Oop in the comic strip they act like I knew him personally. Here is what they
Don’t know let’s start easy when you’re setting in the country club and there is a lull listen with your mind
It not that far to the end of the golf course from the west south corner to the first road that is an eighth
Of a mile every hot rod man or girl already knows that. Play the song GTO in your head going to shut
Them down GTO. Listen to Jims engine howl he had it stroked and bored out in Taylorville you can do
that when daddy owns a bar to bad howl will turn to sobs really. Glen’s driving a dodge cornet with an
automatic on the floor sixty six factory line job you wouldn’t know it by looking Glen blew him away
coming out of the hole never touched or came close at top end Glen was a lone well I told you what Jim
was doing.
Strain a little more you can hear a fifty five chevy leaving the Dog & Suds headed for Elvers Skating rink
he floors it finally he lets it back off what a sound as that glass pack muffler rips the night air see any
Dinosaurs got rid of that old feeling yet. Out on the street here comes the bad with a capital B Lee miller
Is driving his fifty five Chevy burnished brown all the chrome plus the door handles are gone inside and out it is a
Dream are you getting it yet I’m talking about your achievements. Kenny Krivage is over at Rocks burning
cigarettes through five dollar bills on his arm before he was just a good looking kid then the sixties got
Him you were either at rocks or hiding from those that went there. Lot safer drinking cherry coke with
Janice at the hometown cafe even Karate didn’t protect you at rocks the Neece kid even taught it but
when you got a fist of fives coming at your head it not time for theory its time for action. Who can forget
the pied piper Jim Handy was the shortest guy in town unless you were in the first grade but the gang of
six foot behemoths that were his constant companions were hard to miss it must have been how the
poles felt when they saw the Germans on the march. They had a menacing sound long before they laid a
little love on you, your life’s last moments filled with terror until you realized they turned the corner and
went another way how selfish you felt as you sang someone else is going to die today give me a fire
breathing dragon any day. Poor oh pop sinnard never got any business just one kid drinking a vanilla
shake his special thin hamburger I bet that guy could get a hundred burgers out of a pound of ground round
well the pin ball machine was wide open I guess the kid got even for the hamburger there was a certin
Song on the juke box something about eighteen miners scrambled from a would be grave there he stood
all alone Big bad John. Let me tell you Pop knew it he heard it every day I think he stated crying for the
miners one day or was something else on his mind.
Well I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about what was going on in the other part of the country west
coast on 101 going to Frisco going south 101 on the other side Jan and Dean the Beach boys came a live
for a mile and a half every blond guy and girl and all the hot rod chromed out zooped up cars of every
Description was headed to Laguna Seca to the races all the while we were in a Volkswagen bug military
haircuts civies on we looked like a bunch of confused narks like were going to fool any one in that car
And garb we were wearing not to worry hippies are not long on thinking especially when they stood on
the corner in the height and Ahbury in broad day light selling *** for a nickel a lid slang for five bucks you could get
small glad bag of Royal Gold hashish or do what the winos do get a bottle of thunderbird or ripple what
ever know this Wolf Man Jack is blasting the air waves from Mexico since he violated the rules our hero the
man could talk jive and if you were high you thought he was divine I guess you surmise I wasn’t a
Christian at this low point in my life but the Monterey Pop festival was in full swing. The line up Janis
Joplin Jimmy Hendricks mama and the Papas Otis Redding of Dock of the Bay fame and a cast of
Thousands of hippies you couldn’t find a bare spot down town Monterey sidewalks grass the kind you
walk on doorways every where a hippie and not a bar of soap among them. Know this you have been
tamed by time and age but to duck your head forget it this world won’t see your kind again.

Heavy Metal Lovers


A rolling stone gathers no moss the only time I was good at something all it took was four wheels
And you could be a Genius I guess the wheels gives it away this isn’t about bad boy bands heavy
That broke many a levees of the mind but it is inextricably wound together with music and how apropos
To write about it today when the music of all heaven was called to silence and then a whole lot of
Shaking began When **** Clark walked through the gate don’t waist it just taste it it’s all right to be
Burly and squirrely “Get lost in the rock and roll” amp it up Bob Seeger everything comes with rules
There was time before Elvis but it still applied cool cats had one command be cool don’t break the
Jackson rule of Cool Square is not the fit you want to project oh the sixties the place the strip in
Hollywood the car an Austin Healy convertible if they even had hard tops which I doubt reading Michael
Canes auto biography he spoke of him being there I didn’t see him but he got swallowed up by the
Great beast it flowed out of those clubs into the street the sidewalks full of hot babes and cool dudes
We were so low it was like you were on the payment it even got into the act there was a raw energy
That electrified every ounce of your being it rose out of the payment and cruised those Hollywood
Streets plus every street in America felt its heat and heard it s roar red cherry glass pack mufflers
Then songs took up the anthem I had fun fun until my daddy took my T bird away shutem down GTO Jan
and Dean’s Drag City, Dead Man’s Curve, The little old lady from Pasadena and many more but the king
of cars that held the title was held by no other than the Cobra we were a couple of brazen GIs with a
Seventy two hour pass we met the enemy at a stop light the Austin Healy sounded so throaty in that
Southern California night air and we lived the song do you know the way to San Jose LA isn’t nothing but
A bunch of old freeways we would roar up the entrance to the ten the Malibu highway the Five to Dego
The 710 to long beach and the Queen Mary this southern California kid from Compton a suburb of LA
Was giving me the grand tour Disney and Knox berry later in the day the big sad Walt had just died
And then there was this monster next to us it was towering before we felt so continental a slight British
Smugness as we drove this fine European sports car but when the lion roars your purring becomes a
Little puckish it was bulging in comparison we were like a joke your mother won’t let you have a real car
What did they paint the light red how many shades of red did we turn as we set in this shadow of green
Paint and death for any idiot that tossed out a challenge when he took off it was like our car was
Wearing a smug British suit and the force he generated when he accelerated tore every stitch off down
To just underwear praying the smog would quickly envelop us the rest of the way didn’t happen so you
Do what anyone does you choose the less of two evils and rattle on about how they put Porches engines
Into VW bugs like who cares why is one of those suckers behind us well they are cool and this is about
Cool cars you could always tell them by the tail pipe instead of a round rifle barrel it had a wide round
Funnel at the end like the old blunder bust guns of the colonists then an era and times needs a voice
The male was a mix of Lou Rawls and Berry white doing the singing but also any time introduction was
Needed Aretha took care of the female side Jimmy Hendrix took care of the instrument on his
Supernatural guitar Hugh Masicali African Jazz drummer follow the beat every teen Idol was making
The girls swoon then you add in the mix the American auto chrome and steel dreams see the heat rising
Flashes that were blurs running wide open filled with teens and thrill filled screams and then there was
The exit and the entrance there was a royal distinction that rubbed off on its occupants the cool look
And clothes and hair for both sexes dreamy stars in all places not just the bright lights of movie magic
For girls it was they rode well but if they took the wheel this sealed the deal how can you add curves to
Curves they had the saying your blowing my mind man it in toned them as perfect inter changeable the
Womanly softness the interior the lines outside truly defined you are in the presence of qualities that
Run deeper than just the surface you see so much more how blessed when both car and women
Continually amaze you think you discovered everything oh foolish one you just stepped into another
Power zone that was built in at creation somehow the car was somewhat accidental but the woman’s
Was on purpose cheating would cease to a great extent if the truth was only known you got more
Excitement than you will ever know and for the man let him step out rise to his full height there is
Something sweeping and grand about it how could it be any different muscle and brawn distinction
Used as in art subtle but by being so it is so telling appeal runs no stronger and it effects effortlessly
Adds maximum benefit and joy girls find it unmercifully enjoyable packaged like fine wine in a wooden
Box with straw in other words perfected delivery of romance simply a soothe that washes over you
With lasting ramification the golden straw has glistening particles as well as star dust that make other
World tastefulness abide in two lives equally shared so drive into the setting sun in your own heavy
Metal dream that we love so well

Dear mum
im sorry im not the perfect daughter
and that i have so many flaws
and insecurities
im sorry im such a *****
and am always moody
im sorry that im nothing like
my big sister and i never will be
im sorry i dont live up to
what you wanted me to be
the young beautiful
little happy girl
you once knew.

Dear Dad
im sorry that you gto stuck with me
you know when you
and mum broke up
im sorry you had to raise a teenage
daughter on your own
putting up with my
mood swings and my
horrid attitude
all my crying and depression
im sorry for all the arguing
and fighting

in conclusion im sorry for not being the perfect
daughter one that you can
smile about and point out to your friends and
say thats my baby girl
im sorry im just a failure in so many ways
im sorry ill be out of your
hair soon enough

Maddii xo

When you come of age
among Camaros, Mustangs,
GTO's and Challengers,
it seems somehow sad
to hear the pussified sound
of a Prius go puttering by
like Death driving
something sensible.

  ~mce

A wicked road winds across lawless lands
West of the Pecos.
Where Texas turns to hell; a lone GTO
Scourges smug asphalt with a big block
Renegade ethos.

She’s runnin’ low on gas,
She’s been runnin’ way too fast--
And she’s burnin’ rich--

But that’s good.

Because in that combustive concoction,
Is reflected the nuts and bolts,
Ball peens, and crescent wrenches
Of a provocative, evocative, tool chest lending to
Precision tuned angst riddled verse.

She’s a flat black bad-*** *****,
An epic among American cars--
A ‘69 Judge--the 400 cubic inch
Ram-Air rhythms riffing redline stuff
From bookstores to bars.

I work a service station on this
Lonely road, in this inferno west of the Pecos.
In the distance, I hear a distinct sound,
The Judge’s 400 big block, roaring with that
Bruisin’ outlaw ethos.

Down this wicked road of the accepted norm
This Judge is soundin’ mighty good,
I know to have the coffee ready,
As I listen to the poetry chanting under the hood.

Your time will be your own again, she said.
That's what I hate the most tonight about
This whole bad deal,  my selfish loneliness.

Regrets--a too long string of cans behind
The GTO, the goat, red Pontiac
Ragtop spewing gravel in the churchyard.