Will you read this? ~ Karen Welsh

How do I come to terms with…well, I’m sure you don’t want to be bored with the finer details of this particular situation. Let’s just say I’m not wholly responsible for what’ll happen in a year or so. I can only assume it’ll be a long and exhausting sequence of events, I’ll most likely loose some friends and hopefully make some new ones. I’ve been considered an expert in the manufacturing and consuming of recreational drugs…recreational…it’s funny how something as deadly as having a habit is considered recreational…when does it become work based or professional? My new collection of pills contained within my trendy looking pill box isn’t for recreational use or anything else remotely playful…they are delaying the inevitable…and that’s what I’m struggling coming to terms with…

Party #2 ~ Karen Welsh

Brett & Paul are sat drinking red bull whilst looking over the aftermath of the “plug any hole” party.
“It’s the cleaner I feel sorry for” mumbles Brett as he lights a cigarette.
“Say again?” whispers Paul as he drinks the dregs of what looks like a florescent green cocktail.
Pointing at a buzzing dildo spasmodically limping over a pair of blood stained boxer shorts “This mess, it’s worse than a scene from apocalypse now…”
“I guess…but she’s been working here for years”
”yeah but look at the shit left behind, slimy butt plugs, cum soaked gimp mask, a fucking rolling pin, cattle prod, empty can of mace, industrial staple gun, purple strap on and a traffic cone?”
“Not to mention the fucking musty smell…”
“Were we actually at this party?”
“Well….yeah?”
“Are you sure? As my ass feels intact”
“We filmed it…well I filmed it you were the director”
Looking somewhat confused “Fuck”
“Yep it’s all coming back now”
Stepping over a pile of used tampons and an empty tub of ice cream Paul looks for the TV remote control “She does a pretty good job cleaning up after our events…those stains always disappear”
Looking somewhat concerned Brett heads towards the kitchen “I hope she doesn’t go snooping around the freezer”
“Why?”
 “She’ll find the box of you know what!”
“What?”
“Well it wouldn’t be a box of exotic sausages…and that’s what she’ll think!”
“Oh…the box of cocks!”
After a short awkward silence they both start laughing and Paul sputters out “Do you remember when she thanked us for the onion rings and asked why they were slightly hairy!”

NOVEMBER SONG ~ Tony O’Neill

withdrawal:
it’s an autumnal kind of feeling
10 years
from the kings mall to the queens mall
heroin to kratom
but the feeling is the same

dread
but a strange kind of pleasure
a just before xmas
frostbite in the air
everything has a garland
of fairy lights around it

the fat American faces
the towering hairdos
somehow comforting
to me

in the bathroom
performing a surgical procedure
in a pissy cubicle with no lock
foot jammed
2 stalls over someone hacks
coughs, spits,
urine and pubic hairs
children scream
James Blunt sings “Beautiful”
it is a perfect vision
of Hell

a Nigerian
in a Steinway Street
2-for-99-dollars beige silk suit
appears from the city static
like a poltergeist
to talk of revolution
and secret bank accounts
smiles a wide
predators grin
then vanishes into
cut-price midtown hotel

party #1 ~ Karen Welsh

We find Karen lying on the floor not quite knowing how shitfaced drunk she is…Karen slowly opens her eyes, lifts a cigarette to her lips and takes a drag…Across the room, Chad, Tim and josh sit with a Tabatha Cash look-a-like wearing what looks like a see through top…black bra clearly on display…Chad leans down and snorts some cocaine from a clear glass table top, lifts his head back and shakes his nose back and forth …the porn look-a-like falls to her knees rips open Tim’s pants and proceeds to expertly give head…Karen drops her cigarette and blacks out…

Music was a big part of it… ~ Mikael Covey

You’re right, the 70’s was pretty much sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll. But goddamn, we were trying to stop a war, y’know. Friends of ours were getting killed. Wild times. Long hair, Nixon, bluejeans full of holes patched over with bits of flag. And we were all young. What I remember, what any of us remember, it was pretty much a constant party. Like “yeah, I was high all throughout the 70’s…but it was cool…I think.”

Blacklights, fluorescent posters, bell-bottoms, and the constant smell of incense. It was always dark. I think maybe slept all day. Like living in a Camden Town record store. I liked it. Music was a big part of it.

Two things mattered, getting high and the music. Every week the next band was like the biggest on the charts. Mott the Hoople, Slade, the Allman Brothers, ZZ-Top, Arrowsmith, Lynard Skynard, Alice Cooper, Mountain, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, West Bruce and Lang, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Jefferson Airplane, Heart, Kansas, Head East, Pink Floyd, Foghat, Humble Pie, Savoy Brown, Blue Oyster Cult, to name a few. (I’m working from memory here, y’know.)

We were poor. It’s hard not to be poor when you don’t have a job. But who had time to work. This was a time to live. And you could always sell some dope to be able to buy some more dope, and maybe a bag of cheetos. Get the munchies something fierce. Local bars had to stock ‘em by the case. I suppose they thought it was odd, this run on cheetos all of a sudden, but business is business. Gettin high and playing foosball with the young vets back from the war.

Everybody wearing green Army jackets, even the school kids. Kinda looking like The Clash. Ratty, wasted. Not even fuckin worried about it. Don’t even realize it. We cool. “He aint no fuckin corporal” says Izzy “I’m gonna kick his ass.” Forget it, I tell him. Get some coffee, chill out. Sittin there in the bowling alley wired to the gills. Smoking a cigarette, can’t find an ashtray. Figure you can just flick the ashes into your coffee. So what, doesn’t really matter.

Alice Cooper at the big auditorium. Feels like you got blinders on. Tunnel vision. Beach balls flying around through the haze. Dodge the frisbees soaring across the arena coming straight at you. Duck! Kids selling dime bags. Joints moving across from one end to the other and then both ends at the same time. We got no acid, just popper. Hard to get the same kinda buzz off popper, but what can you do. Then they turn the lights off. Shit, you mean there’s a show on top of it all?

Next show, Ted Nugent comes out “we’re gonna play the songs from our new album.” Fuck you Ted, I paid to hear Tooth, Fang and Claw. Not this new shit. Motherfucker. ZZ Top was the tightest band I ever saw. Well, only three guys, but damn they’re good. Gracie Slick sings all the songs off their Worst album. “One pill makes you larger…” Very clean, great sound. Decent light show, like sunrise in the desert or something. What the fuck.

Arrowsmith is so fucking loud you can’t hear the music, just feel it from inside out. Ears buzzing for two days coming down. Kansas was good, electric violin, Dust in the Wind. Eyes blinking like shutters opening and closing. Feels normal after a while. Like you’re stopped slow-motion draggin yer ass around when you’re not tripping. Doesn’t feel right. The world’s quit spinning like.

Spirit opens for Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I think I remember Nature’s Way. You can actually see the music like it’s floating across in the dark. Kid behind me shaking so bad he knocks over his co-cola. Funny, watching him is like seeing how my insides feel. Then those crazy Canadians pounding their guitars with big mountain man fingers like it was gonna go on forever. I’d like to thank you, I’d like to thank you… Over and over ‘til you kinda lose track.

For some reason they turn the lights on and you have to go home. You shittin me? Janey helps me down the cement steps from the way up high seats. It was so safe and warm up there in the dark. One at a time Mikey, we gonna make it. She got confidence. But I’m gettin worse. Smile at the old cop at the door. Yeah, we goin. Make our way out to the car.

Janey can tell by the way I’m fumbling at my pocket for the cigarettes. She gets one for me, lights it. See, that isn’t so hard. “We gonna go to the house?” Process that one
word at a time. It must mean, are we going to go to the house. Damn, that would mean driving the fucking car through traffic and all. Can’t we just sit here in the parking lot? No, they might think we’re all fucked up or something. My hands shake in rhythm to the blinking of my eyes. But the car key finds its own way in, so… Jesus fuck, O Street in Lincoln. My friends live on F Street. There must be an alphabetical correlation here. Just process it, slowly.