Lou (jsh, dogbowl)
Lou wanted to be noticed and understood, but he was so quiet. So one day
he wrote the following poem:
a four or five piece band
where three or four of the
people don't play
any instruments performed
in front of an
audience consisting
solely of six foot
two lesbians from Anchorage
Alaska, a kind of
healing feeling friendly
Sam for a fortnight and
a half a ham
and cheese
insinuating strenuous
selfishness and culminating in
concrete caribou tissue
and crucified cats
After finishing the poem, Lou left it on the dining room table. Then he
went into the bathroom, slit each wrist seven times and quietly died. No
one noticed but everyone understood.
At Dave's (jsh, dogbowl)
There were other ways of knowing: he stepped into a yellow morning which
seemed to him to be, well, not gray but kind of a grayish maroon. He
couldn't figure out why; he hadn't eaten mushrooms in at least a week.
He stumble-crawled towards Dave's Luncheonette, climbed into a booth. He insisted on looking at the menu for six minutes and thirty seven seconds every day even though he always ordered bacon and eggs, toast and coffee. This morning, he also ordered water, but he didn't drink any of it.
It was Thursday, April 20, 1967. He was waiting for something to happen. As he was eating, some of the water evaporated, some people were born, some were married, a star imploded, a friends of his was throwing up, two others were having sex. As he finished his last forkful of eggs, a fly sitting directly opposite from him, died.
He left Dave's, headed north. Nothing much happened the rest of the day. Had he known it was Hitler's birthday, he would not have celebrated.
Muffy (jsh, delaszlo)
Muffy-She's an american original
Muffy-Is she vegetable or mineral?
Muffy-She lets it all hang out
Muffy-funny and freckly
Muffy-she'll sell some memories
Muffy-she knows what its all about
(impromptu conversation featuring Dogbowl, DeLazlo and jsh)
Take Stuff From Work (jsh)
Take stuff from work.
It's the best way to feel better about your job.
Never buy pens or pencils or paper.
Take 'em from work.
Rubber bands, paper clips, memo pads, folders-take 'em from work.
It's the best way to feel better about your low pay and appalling working
conditions.
Take an ashtray-they got plenty.
Take coat hangers.
Take a, take a trash can.
Why buy a file cabinet?
Why buy a phone?
Why buy a personal computer or word processor?
Take 'em from work.
I took a whole desk from the last place I worked.
They never noticed and it looks great in my apartment.
Take an electric pencil sharpener.
Take a case of white-out; you might need it one day.
It's your duty as an oppressed worker to steal from your exploiters.
It's gonna be an outstanding day.
Take stuff from work.
And goof off on the company time.
I wrote this at work.
They're paying me to write about stuff I steal from them.
Life is good.
Sensitive Artist (jsh)
I am a sensitive artist.
Nobody understands me because I am so deep.
In my work, I make allusions to books that nobody else has read,
Music that nobody else has heard,
And art that nobody else has seen.
I can't help it, because I am so much more intelligent and
well-rounded
Than everyone who surrounds me.
I stopped watching tv when I was six months old
Because it was so boring and stupid,
And started reading books,
And going to recitals and art galleries.
I don't go to recitals any more,
Because my hearing is too sensitive,
And I don't go to art galleries anymore
Because there are people there,
And I can't deal with people,
Because they don't understand me.
I stay home, reading books that are beneath me,
And working on my work, which no one understands.
I am sensitive.
Wuss (jsh)
I was a teenage wuss.
In junior high school, I had oily, stringy hair and lots of pimples.
I wore really wussy clothes.
Most of the other kids called me a faggot.
Even some of the other wusses called me a faggot.
There was maybe five kids in the whole school who were wussier than I
was.
I was really wussed out.
I was afraid of girls, and guys scared the shit out of me.
They used to say to me, "What are you, queer?"
They wanted me to fight, to prove I wasn't a faggot.
But I didn't fight, I ran away.
I was a wuss.
I was never into any sports at all.
I never took showers after gym class.
I wore my gym clothes under my regular clothes,
So I wouldn't have to change in front of everybody else.
I was afraid to realize my full potential in school because,
To the other kids,
The smarter you were,
The wussier you were
And the wussier you were,
The more they beat you up.
I was a hopeless wuss.
Wuss, Wuss, Wuss.
I was into science fiction and math and chess.
It was not fun being a wuss, and even now,
Now that I'm not nearly as much of a wuss as I once was,
I still feel kind of wussy from time to time:
Residual wussiness-
The kind of thing you can never really leave behind.
That's the way it goes.
Heavy Holy Man (jsh, dogbowl, delaszlo)
The Heavy Holy Man sits on the hill,
Holding hard wooden ball.
Hears mysteries of the universe unfolding but blocks it all out.
He has one eye pointed toward the sky,
As the other searches over the earth
For dinner.
Without ever once leaving his hill
The Heavy Holy Man has sampled fast food from all over western
Europe:
Wimpyburgers from London,
Wonderburgers from Dublin,
And his favorite, Hitburgers from Paris,
Which he ate whenever he had some free time.
This particular day, however,
The Heavy Holy Man travelled to Amsterdam,
To Febo's,
Where he put one and a half guilders in the slot,
Opened the little door,
And pulled out his Feboburger and Febonapkin,
All without ever leaving the hill.
Then the Heavy Holy Man smiled,
His faith reaffirmed once again.
"All the treasures of this, or any other world, are mine for the
asking,"
He thought to himself.
Pygmies And Drums
There are no words to pygmies and drums.
This piece appears only on the vinyl version of Fluting On The
Hump.
Fluting On The Hump (jsh)
I can't relate to people
Who rush to catch the train
So much strain
For such a momentary gain
Why not just once
Try to live a day
In a leisurely way
Like in those paintings by
Duboffet
Fluting on the hump
Fluting on the hump
Like an Arab taking a ride on a camel
Fluting on the hump
Fluting on the hump
Fluting on the hump
Like an Arab taking a slow ride
Fluting on the hump
Fluting on the hump
Fluting on the hump
Like a desert man riding on the sand on a camel
Fluting on the hump
(and then the second chorus again, yeah, yeah yeah)
Dick (jsh, dogbowl, delaszlo)
Dick was obsessed with his dick.
He would beat off at least three times a day:
In the morning, when he woke up,
Right after or right before dinner,
And right before he went to sleep.
If he didn't get in his three daily beat-off sessions,
He was a pain in the ass to be around.
He jerked off to tv-
Especially Mary Tyler Moore and Dynasty and Charlie's Angels;
He pulled his pud to porno books;
He even jerked off
To the underwear ads
In the magazine section of the Sunday New York Times.
If you were a girl, talking to him on the phone,
Chances are he was beating his meat to the sound of your voice.
'Cause coming was his raison d'etre.
One time he was in the middle of jerking off to Vanna White on Wheel of
Fortune
When a job offer came to him over the phone
And he needed a job bad
But he told the man he'd call him right back,
'Cause he needed to come more than he needed the job.
And it wasn't that he was ugly or afraid of women or anything like
that
He just honestly preferred his right hand.
I saw him the other day,
And he told me that last friday he was with two girls at their place
And they both wanted him to stay over.
But he went home,
Called up another girl,
and jacked off while talking to her.
I don't know why he tells me this shit.
Dick's a fucked up guy.
That Old Dog (jsh, dogbowl)
I waited two and a half years for a train to Springfield, Ohio
I gave up and I began to walk, but I was so hungry
And its a damn good thing I was wearing shoes
I decided the cool thing to do would be to order some Challah Bread
And Turtle Soup
But I ordered a tuna salad sandwich
And some french fries
I mean,
What the hell's the difference anyway
Look, the thing is,
I'm half way to Springfield,
Like I'm in
Maryland someplace,
And the money runs out
I get some freelance welding work in Silver Spring and then-
And this was a big kick for me-
I put on my hat and I said "Sorry, Sue Ellen, but I got to be moving
on."
As it turned out, I never did get to Springfield, Ohio.
Oh, but sometimes,
Sometimes when the moon is full
I can hear that old dog howling
Howling, like he was right outside my own window.