1.) We knew there was trouble once we saw the fish were stoned.
2.) He could tell how your butt was touched and when. He was psychic.
3.) We boogied and barfed all night long. Cora Lynn was smoking a huge stogie and wearing a Red Lobster bib.
4.) Standing in the loneliest produce aisle in Vancouver, Marnie started crying brown Kroger tears on the ripe honeydew.
5.) The mayor of Kickflip Bay christened the hill Fakie Mountain.
6.) Grandma began growing a beard after a month of drinking nothing but Heineken tallboys. We thought the moustache was a bit much but she refused to stop the hair experiment.
"If you like the cut of our jib, you'll love what was revealed to us in perpetuity!"
Monday, December 02, 2019
Friday, August 09, 2019
THE SUMMER BEFORE THE NIGHT ECSTASY BECAME ILLEGAL IN THE STATE OF TEXAS BY D.C BERMAN
My friend Kyle always had a lot of money and could get me into the expensive kind of trouble without the trouble sticking. He didn't mind paying for me if it meant raising hell with loyal company. We were seventeen. You only needed one reason to be friends at that age. I figured we had at least three. So we broke the law every day in every way and laughed our asses off at the fucking stupid world. My friend Kyle always had a lot of money and could get me into the expensive kind of trouble without the trouble sticking. He didn't mind paying for me if it meant raising hell with loyal company. We were seventeen. You only needed one reason to be friends at that age. I figured we had at least three. So we broke the law every day in every way and laughed our asses off at the fucking stupid world.
In late April we began to hear rumours about a new drug in the Metroplex. It was in the gay bars. Kids at the Arts Magnet were getting it. Certain people at certain parties had it and it was magical.
They called it X. it was supposed to make you unaccountably happy and tolerant of everyone from headbangers to rich fucks. Even 'douchebags'.
Psychiatrists had been using it in therapy for years, we were told. It was a legal and local product (it was still special to Texas at that time). It would make you love and accept anyone. Even yourself.
This was a complicated promise for the teenager roiling with hate and confusion. I hardly believed it. But one night Kyle pulled out some foil holding four tablets, we each swallowed two, and went to a party where a lot of people were going to be doing it.
Coming around the corner of that house, I'll never forget the scene. Every high-school rule was being broken before me. The lions were chatting up the lambs. I saw sworn enemies talking like long-time companions; a prickly society bitch on her knees sifting white garden pebbles through her hands with happy eyes; a brutal wrestler from my school with his arms wrapped around the trunk of a pecan tree, saying his first words to me ever, 'Hi David', sweetly, as I walked by.
I rolled my jeans up to my knees and sat at the edge of the pool. Maybe for the first time I felt like no one was going to try to push me in. The stereo was playing 'Blues for Allah' instead of the customary 'Eliminator'. Nearby, two linebackers were confessing how much they depended on each other 'on and off the field'. I felt myself giving in to all the kindness, not caring if it was a lie or not. By the time a hot Fort Worth Jewess sprang into my lap and began running her fingers through my hair I was sold.
At sunrise, I came in through the sliding glass. I woke my father and his new bride, apologised for staying out all night, and pulled a chair up beside the bed. I continued to sit there and smile down on them. I said, 'I just want you to know how much I love you, Dad.' Incredibly, he did not kick my ass. That morning was never mentioned again.
As I said before, ecstasy was still legal and as such carried virtually no stigma. Kyle's uncle kept a jar of tablets on his desk at his car dealership. Law-abiding adults were taking them at the North Dallas cocktail parties. They were even sold behind the bars like cigarettes and openly hawked on street corners downtown.
That summer, I crushed two sports cars with my homely Buick, received six speeding tickets (three in one day), two tickets for public urination, impregnated a Collin County judge's daughter, and had a bottle of MD 20/20 broken over my head. Approximately none of it registered with me. A very real fault of the drug.
I'm going to skip the scenes of me chasing daisies and singing to stray dogs from still bulldozer cabs. I was exercising horses that summer for cash, and X hangovers were A-OK for barrelling over the dull scrubland.
Sometime in August, the lawmakers in Austin finally got around to outlawing ecstasy. What a gift for the dealers! The price of ecstasy immediately quadrupled and the production costs plummeted as the manufactures began cutting the pills with all manner of horrible stuff.
The night the law went through, I went to a concert at the Bronco Bowl and snagged two of the newly illegal pills for a dear price. I had never seen them in capsules and had no idea it was a sign they were crushing the old 'legal' pills and mixing them laxatives, mannitol, low-grade speed, whatever.
Once inside, I spent a half-hour wiggling my way to the front of the floor. Unfortunately, when I got there I had a big problem. Not only were the drugs not kicking in, they were causing me to have to shit real bad. Michael Stipe was singing 'Moon River' (hey!) a cappella and I knew that I was going to blow if I didn't part this shoulder-to-shoulder crowd and make it to the restroom. The audience was frozen in place and dead silent as I plowed through, 'Excuse me, excuse me, emergency here please, please' (I think I even yelled 'gangway', such was my ambition to get through), completely stepping on the vocalist's Ethel Merman star turn and nearly getting shhhhhed to death.
I passed the rest of the concert in a nasty stall gritting my teeth, sweating and coming to terms with what was clearly the symbolic end of a spaced-out summer.
Fifteen years on, I can honestly say I'm glad it was outlawed. After three months of its use I had lost all discretion and was prepared to trust about anyone. Worse yet, it was turning me into a joiner. That's not who I am. Anyway, ecstasy was not to find its true customer base until years later, when the strangely passive kids who grew up in the child protectorate of the U.S. eighties and nineties came of age, craving depersonalisation. Apparently it helps them dance. They're a very attractive lot. Have you seen them dance?
In late April we began to hear rumours about a new drug in the Metroplex. It was in the gay bars. Kids at the Arts Magnet were getting it. Certain people at certain parties had it and it was magical.
They called it X. it was supposed to make you unaccountably happy and tolerant of everyone from headbangers to rich fucks. Even 'douchebags'.
Psychiatrists had been using it in therapy for years, we were told. It was a legal and local product (it was still special to Texas at that time). It would make you love and accept anyone. Even yourself.
This was a complicated promise for the teenager roiling with hate and confusion. I hardly believed it. But one night Kyle pulled out some foil holding four tablets, we each swallowed two, and went to a party where a lot of people were going to be doing it.
Coming around the corner of that house, I'll never forget the scene. Every high-school rule was being broken before me. The lions were chatting up the lambs. I saw sworn enemies talking like long-time companions; a prickly society bitch on her knees sifting white garden pebbles through her hands with happy eyes; a brutal wrestler from my school with his arms wrapped around the trunk of a pecan tree, saying his first words to me ever, 'Hi David', sweetly, as I walked by.
I rolled my jeans up to my knees and sat at the edge of the pool. Maybe for the first time I felt like no one was going to try to push me in. The stereo was playing 'Blues for Allah' instead of the customary 'Eliminator'. Nearby, two linebackers were confessing how much they depended on each other 'on and off the field'. I felt myself giving in to all the kindness, not caring if it was a lie or not. By the time a hot Fort Worth Jewess sprang into my lap and began running her fingers through my hair I was sold.
At sunrise, I came in through the sliding glass. I woke my father and his new bride, apologised for staying out all night, and pulled a chair up beside the bed. I continued to sit there and smile down on them. I said, 'I just want you to know how much I love you, Dad.' Incredibly, he did not kick my ass. That morning was never mentioned again.
As I said before, ecstasy was still legal and as such carried virtually no stigma. Kyle's uncle kept a jar of tablets on his desk at his car dealership. Law-abiding adults were taking them at the North Dallas cocktail parties. They were even sold behind the bars like cigarettes and openly hawked on street corners downtown.
That summer, I crushed two sports cars with my homely Buick, received six speeding tickets (three in one day), two tickets for public urination, impregnated a Collin County judge's daughter, and had a bottle of MD 20/20 broken over my head. Approximately none of it registered with me. A very real fault of the drug.
I'm going to skip the scenes of me chasing daisies and singing to stray dogs from still bulldozer cabs. I was exercising horses that summer for cash, and X hangovers were A-OK for barrelling over the dull scrubland.
Sometime in August, the lawmakers in Austin finally got around to outlawing ecstasy. What a gift for the dealers! The price of ecstasy immediately quadrupled and the production costs plummeted as the manufactures began cutting the pills with all manner of horrible stuff.
The night the law went through, I went to a concert at the Bronco Bowl and snagged two of the newly illegal pills for a dear price. I had never seen them in capsules and had no idea it was a sign they were crushing the old 'legal' pills and mixing them laxatives, mannitol, low-grade speed, whatever.
Once inside, I spent a half-hour wiggling my way to the front of the floor. Unfortunately, when I got there I had a big problem. Not only were the drugs not kicking in, they were causing me to have to shit real bad. Michael Stipe was singing 'Moon River' (hey!) a cappella and I knew that I was going to blow if I didn't part this shoulder-to-shoulder crowd and make it to the restroom. The audience was frozen in place and dead silent as I plowed through, 'Excuse me, excuse me, emergency here please, please' (I think I even yelled 'gangway', such was my ambition to get through), completely stepping on the vocalist's Ethel Merman star turn and nearly getting shhhhhed to death.
I passed the rest of the concert in a nasty stall gritting my teeth, sweating and coming to terms with what was clearly the symbolic end of a spaced-out summer.
Fifteen years on, I can honestly say I'm glad it was outlawed. After three months of its use I had lost all discretion and was prepared to trust about anyone. Worse yet, it was turning me into a joiner. That's not who I am. Anyway, ecstasy was not to find its true customer base until years later, when the strangely passive kids who grew up in the child protectorate of the U.S. eighties and nineties came of age, craving depersonalisation. Apparently it helps them dance. They're a very attractive lot. Have you seen them dance?
Monday, September 25, 2017
Monday, September 11, 2017
CHEATING PT. IV
Let's go to the bathroom
I love a lover that's discreet
first time i heard your voice
was like a lightbulb
she said / he said
My crush is a fat fuck
I like a crush who can shut up
Did you take something from me?
Cuz one thing I hate is to lose something.
I love a lover that's discreet
first time i heard your voice
was like a lightbulb
she said / he said
My crush is a fat fuck
I like a crush who can shut up
Did you take something from me?
Cuz one thing I hate is to lose something.
The coach sounded really
fucked up on drugs
fucked up on drugs
He made us kneel in
a choir is screaming
tell me that's not Cher
Saturday, July 29, 2017
NEW PARTY ROLL CALL Pt. 2
HENNA PARTY (J/K)
FAKE OFFICE PARTY w/ XEROX MACHINE ANTICS PARTY
YOU CAN'T BEAT AN OLD FASHIONED CHILI CONTEST PARTY
FAKE PARTY PHOTO SHOOT PARTY
SWANK LAUNDROMAT PARTY
MAKEOUT PARTY (actually an old party developed by teenagers)
FAKE OFFICE PARTY w/ XEROX MACHINE ANTICS PARTY
YOU CAN'T BEAT AN OLD FASHIONED CHILI CONTEST PARTY
FAKE PARTY PHOTO SHOOT PARTY
SWANK LAUNDROMAT PARTY
MAKEOUT PARTY (actually an old party developed by teenagers)
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
DRUG POEM (2011)
Corrie was hanging out with some punks/workmates at a fire behind the Lodge. She called Ted for a ride home but explained that she didn't know where she was or how to get out. Since Ted and I had been there and Ted had flashlights we set off for the hills. We found Corrie easily despite the swamp but soon realized his cigarettes had fallen from his shirt pocket as had my sunglasses from the same pocket on my own shirt. It was midnight and we thought we were fucked but went looking. It took time to find our past path but both the cigarettes and sunglasses were lying next to each other on the ground. We jumped up and down with our arms raised, screaming with joy. Corrie just looked at us.
Before that, we met up with Matt for BBQ. (The food was unremarkable and went sour over night in both the to-go container and my stomach.) Matt had finished a batch of DMT and took me and Ted to the Isle for a test. Ted had never smoked DMT so he went first: a tunnel with the unmoving head of an animated statue at the end. Matt followed: a scary trip of deformed people in Pepsi t-shirts. He opened his eyes early & walked towards us while experiencing intense hallucinations of bark spinning on tree branches. He said the trip was lasting hours.
My trip: I sat on the ground with my back to a tree and began taking hits. I stared at the trees ahead until they began to move & thought, "I'm ready, here we go..." and put the pipe down. I immediately felt at peace, falling into shifting patterns and gradients of yellow and red. I was hopeful, looking for the people because I hadn't seen them in some time. They were angry at me for smoking DMT after an argument with my girlfriend, Suicide playing full blast.
I was on the inside of a chamber and realized the people were there. They were hiding in the light or made up of it but casually interacting: silhouetted curvy women like those on a truck's mudflap lying on their side cascading into the periphery. In reality, I began to fall over and jumped when my limp body finally gave way. My eyes opened briefly and saw a reminder that I was there: one of my legs. Closing my eyes again, the brief image of the woods and my leg remained but solarized, then stretched and burned apart like film in the gate of a projector.
We drove to the tip of the Isle and sat on the rocks where we each took another trip. This time I was underwater. The visuals were not unlike the reflection of water on the ceiling of a cave. I was drifting and it felt as though I could fall asleep right there. Matt experienced something similar but Ted was back inside the tunnel. Later, I took a third trip and was confronted with a vision of Ted sitting on the rocks. The detail was magnificent: every freckle popping off his face about one foot into the air. He was naked and unmoving, the color of the Statue of Liberty. A three foot crack erupted in him, stretching from face to pubis, and foamy dark green blood gushed from the opening.
Afterward, we went to the Igloo and got peanut butter milkshakes.
Before that, we met up with Matt for BBQ. (The food was unremarkable and went sour over night in both the to-go container and my stomach.) Matt had finished a batch of DMT and took me and Ted to the Isle for a test. Ted had never smoked DMT so he went first: a tunnel with the unmoving head of an animated statue at the end. Matt followed: a scary trip of deformed people in Pepsi t-shirts. He opened his eyes early & walked towards us while experiencing intense hallucinations of bark spinning on tree branches. He said the trip was lasting hours.
My trip: I sat on the ground with my back to a tree and began taking hits. I stared at the trees ahead until they began to move & thought, "I'm ready, here we go..." and put the pipe down. I immediately felt at peace, falling into shifting patterns and gradients of yellow and red. I was hopeful, looking for the people because I hadn't seen them in some time. They were angry at me for smoking DMT after an argument with my girlfriend, Suicide playing full blast.
I was on the inside of a chamber and realized the people were there. They were hiding in the light or made up of it but casually interacting: silhouetted curvy women like those on a truck's mudflap lying on their side cascading into the periphery. In reality, I began to fall over and jumped when my limp body finally gave way. My eyes opened briefly and saw a reminder that I was there: one of my legs. Closing my eyes again, the brief image of the woods and my leg remained but solarized, then stretched and burned apart like film in the gate of a projector.
We drove to the tip of the Isle and sat on the rocks where we each took another trip. This time I was underwater. The visuals were not unlike the reflection of water on the ceiling of a cave. I was drifting and it felt as though I could fall asleep right there. Matt experienced something similar but Ted was back inside the tunnel. Later, I took a third trip and was confronted with a vision of Ted sitting on the rocks. The detail was magnificent: every freckle popping off his face about one foot into the air. He was naked and unmoving, the color of the Statue of Liberty. A three foot crack erupted in him, stretching from face to pubis, and foamy dark green blood gushed from the opening.
Afterward, we went to the Igloo and got peanut butter milkshakes.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
PRESENT
Surprise clean and
rare shock of
words shaped thoroughly in
the work after we parted
ways instead of
enduring every battle with
a professional tone.
rare shock of
words shaped thoroughly in
the work after we parted
ways instead of
enduring every battle with
a professional tone.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
THEATER
who's a slick boy escape
artist which lost his shirt & whistlin
on a fence got his ass
beat back flesh turned
hamburger cab to ypsilanti
artist which lost his shirt & whistlin
on a fence got his ass
beat back flesh turned
hamburger cab to ypsilanti
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
BULLS
coki
got hurt on the slopes, thought he was going to pull a sonny
sandy got a blackeye at the pipefitters convention
we had hot cross buns & toast, strange lunch you know but I cant complain,
i say that but i hurt my tooth but then I was eating some finger potatoes
where's the weirdest place you cried
got hurt on the slopes, thought he was going to pull a sonny
sandy got a blackeye at the pipefitters convention
we had hot cross buns & toast, strange lunch you know but I cant complain,
i say that but i hurt my tooth but then I was eating some finger potatoes
where's the weirdest place you cried
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
9 JAN 2012
Today I farted thrice into the first bite of a 7-11 ultra-sized spicy hot dog. Jalapeno chip dust flew into the back of my mouth causing me to cough up the offending chip & shoot a snot rocket at the same time. That happened four times. Then a woman pulled into the parking lot, looked at me sitting on the ground with my hot dog for ten seconds, and pulled back out.
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