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To the loving memory
and the spirit of
Susan Rey Blancha Tallarico
CONTENTS
Title page
1
Peripheral Visionary
2
Zits and Tits
3
The Pipe That Was Never Played
4
My Red Parachute (and Other Dreams)
5
Confessions of a Rhyme-a-Holic
6
Little Bo Peep, the Glitter Queen, and the Girl in the Yellow Corvette
7
Noise in the Attic (Snow Days)
8
Ladies and Genitals . . . I’m Not a Bad Guy (I’m Just Egotestical)
9
The Hood, the Bad, the Ugly . . . Hammered with Hemingway
10
Food Poisoning at a Family Picnic
11
Getting Lost on Your Way to the Middle
12
Where You End and I Begin . . . Again (the Goddess)
13
Trouble in Paradise (Losing Your Grip on the Life Fantastic)
13.5
The Bitch Goddess of Billboard
14
Holy Smoke, Quest for the Grand Pashmina, and the Big Chill of Twenty Summers
15
To Zanzibar and Back
16
Falling in Love Is Hard on the Knees
17
Take a Walk Inside My Mind . . .
If you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
If you’re a singer, everything looks like a song.
Life is short. Break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that makes you smile.” We’re not quantified; there’s no chart of desire. When the roaring flames of your heart have burned down to embers, may you find that you have married your best friend. Hunch, conjecture, instinct . . . a blind allegiance to anything can get you killed, and always remember . . . sing as though no one can hear you; live as though heaven is here on Earth. Here I want to say something deep and meaningless, like “To thine own self be true,” but in truth, the first thing we have to do is KILL ALL THE LAWYERS.
When I was a kid and in a gang, my so-called best friend, Dennis Dunn, would slam me in the arm and say, “Pass it on, motherfucker!” So I turned to Ignacio and punched him in the arm and said, “Pass it on!” Ignacio turned to Footie and punched him in the arm, and Footie punched Raymond, who in turn . . . punched me again. It’s all about fighting for position. Later on in life I was to find that being in a band was not too different. Only in my new gang, Brad punched Tom, Tom punched Joey, Joey punched Joe, and Joe punched me (in the mouth), and that’s the sweetest way I can tell you what happens in every band that ever there was (at least those that lasted more than ten years and got the chance to manifest the light).
I remember once my mother telling me, when I said I wanted to be like Janis Joplin: “If you manifest the light, you will become a dartboard for others’ fears, doubts, and insecurities. And if you can handle that, Steven, my little skeezix, you may have your Blue Army.” And guess what? I got both barrels! I also wish to articulate
