I Was A Stranger - Smog
I was a stranger
When i came to town
Just yesterday
I was a stranger
They dont come much stranger
So why
Why did you believe
All every word I said
Why did you believe
Believe a stranger
A stranger
And why do you women in this town
Let me look at you so bold
When you have seen what i was
In the last town
In the last town
You should have seen what i was
If i was a stranger
I was worse than a stranger
I was well-known
Insomniac - Galway Kinnell
I open my eyes to see how the night
is progressing. The clock glows green,
the light of the last-quarter moon
shines up off the snow into our bedroom.
Her portion of our oceanic duvet
lies completely flat. The words
of the shepherd in Tristan, "Waste
and empty, the sea," come back to me.
Where can she be? Then in the furrow
where the duvet overlaps her pillow,
a small hank of brown hair
shows itself, her marker that she's here,
asleep, somewhere down in the dark
underneath. Now she rotates
herself a quarter turn, from strewn
all unfolded on her back to bunched
in a Z on her side, with her back to me.
I squirm nearer, careful not to break
into the immensity of her sleep,
and lie there absorbing the astounding
quantity of heat a slender body
ovens up around itself.
Her slow, purring, sometimes snorish,
perfectly intelligible sleeping sounds
abruptly stop. A leg darts back
and hooks my ankle with its foot
and draws me closer. Immediately
her sleeping sounds resume, telling me:
"Come, press against me, yes, like that,
put your right elbow on my hipbone, perfect,
and your right hand at my breasts, yes, that's it,
now your left arm, which has become extra,
stow it somewhere out of the way, good.
Entangled with each other so, unsleeping one,
together we will outsleep the night."
© Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006
Fattening Frogs For Snakes - Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller)
It took me a long time, to find out my mistakes
Took me a long time, to find out my mistakes
(It sho` did man)
But I bet you my bottom dollar, I`m not fattenin` no more frogs for snakes
I found out my downfall, back in nineteen and thirty
(I started checkin`)
I found out my downfall, from nineteen and thirty
I`m tellin` all of my friends, I`m not fattenin` no more frogs for snakes
All right now
Yeah it is nineteen and fifty-seven, I`ve got to correct all of my mistakes
Whoa man, nineteen and fifty-seven, I`ve got to correct all of my mistakes
I`m tellin` my friends includin` my wife and everybody else,
Not fattenin` no more frogs for snakes
Out Of Step (With The World) - Minor Threat
(I) Don't smoke
I don't drink
I don't fuck
At least I can fucking think
I can't keep up,
Can't keep up
Can't keep up
Out of step with the world
I can't keep up,
Can't keep up
Can't keep up
Out of step with the world
(I) Don't smoke
I Don't drink
I Don't fuck
At least I can fucking think
I can't keep up,
Can't keep up
Can't keep up
Out of step with the world
I can't keep up,
Can't keep up
Can't keep up
Out of step with the world
(Spoken) Listen, there's no set of rules. I'm not tellin' you what to do, all I'm saying is I'm thinkin' of three things that are like, so important to our world I don't have to find much importance in because of these things, whether they are fucking or whether it's playing golf, because of that I feel
I can't keep up,
Can't keep up
Can't keep up
Out of step with the world
Cashing in.
Doug Dir - Harmonica, Cancun, Mexico - February 19, 1995
On a holiday away to Cancun, Mexico in February 1995,
purportedly to patch up our breaking marriage, Kathie and I signed on for a
'booze cruise, a dinner cruise to a nearby island on which, for those not
initiated, beautiful young Mexican’s boys and girls are employed to make sure
everyone on the boat gets drunk. One of the scheduled events on our
cruise was a talent contest, as it turns out, and I was randomly plucked from
the audience to participate.
I happened to be carrying an ‘A’ harp, that night, for I had
been experimenting with playing around at some Dallas area blues jams, and
generally had a harp in my pocket to practice and learn songs. So I
capitulated and, when it was my turn to perform, I quickly made an attempt to communicate to the band that I wanted to perform Jimmy Reed’s ‘Baby What You Want Me To Do’.
I ultimately shared the win with a local man who dutifully sang the Mexican National
Anthem. For our embarrassment we were each awarded with a bottle of cheap tequila.
Coincidentally, Pamela Anderson married Tommy Lee that same
weekend, just down the beach from us at the Ritz. We happened to arrive at the airport for our departing flights
at the same time. They stood in line next to us at the American Airlines
ticket counter – though they flew first class. I didn’t recognize either
of them; I just recalled that I had been mesmerized by that woman's amazingly
natural beauty . . . and that the tall, gangly, tattooed rocker-type guy that she was with was lucky as shit to have her. I couldn't help but run into the couple and their entourage, consisting of two equally
tattooed male band flunkies, around the terminal as we all waited for the departure of our respective flights back to the U.S. All we could do was have one last Sunday morning Mexican beer.
It wasn’t until late that
evening after we had arrived back home, in Dallas, that we saw news on the TV
and realized who they were, and what we had witnessed. Of course, we all
know that neither their, nor my blessed union could stand the test of time,
ending with divorce.
Here is the filmed
footage, captured in a commemorative VHS sold at the nights end. I’ve converted the VHS tape to a digital format, and edited it down to include the additional frames of Kathie and me living it up in Mexico.