by: Michael Bradford
The de-tailed feather in the cap of one of Yoda’s no-men who clipped his own wings and took an epic nose dive into the big drink.
“The Turn”
When at one moment you are in a bar, tossing back a shot and nursing the bang with a buck shot of chaser beer – and the next you are chasing back the flames with a shot of fire water; you are well on your way. Your blinker is on.
When at one moment you are rapping rock stead easy with your people and/or any person in ear shot of your spit shine – and the next you are incapable of speaking the very same language that spilled so fluently from your frothy lips only seconds ago; you are just about there. Your wheel is bent.
When at one moment you can see and hear and feel and even smell yourself in a place you know then and there you will never remember – and the next you wake up on the L train in East New York with someone else’s hands in your pockets, no shoes and short 200 bucks; you have made it to your final destination. Your turn is over.
“The Jedi”
At the very beginning of summer, many years ago, a Luke warm but Sky miles high johnny come lately Walker type crept into an art gallery on 11th street in Manhattan with a lion heart broken in that singular and sensationally shattering way that can only afflict a man capable of fully loving a dangerous woman. Just days after escaping his Jezebel, suffering the consequences he did not do so lightly.
“The Rest”
Armed with a virgin Molotov cocktail of potable water mixed with the fragile life assurance policy of highly pressurized American Air, our hero stared blankly into a pair of the saddest happy faced eye balls its sockets could muster. The tone deaf conductor of said orbital organs belonging to none other than your very own Gore Tide, I was at that time merely an old acquaintance. But from that day forward, I became a meta window washer, wiping clear the haze of a long confused gaze – allowing the world to enjoy a unique view into one soul’s powerful source material. Instantly shaming the back scratching and flea grooming simian as the outstanding beacon of altruistic “good pals”, we set out to do, since there was no try.
We failed.
Immediately after which, we both got high on real drugs and proceeded to ingest the entire island, one street at time, two 40 ounces of light beer per hour, 8 hours a day, for two months straight. It wasn’t till the end of that courtesy courtship with the borough that I caught the fear.
And when I did, I left town without a word. Jedi, I was not.
That very next day, our hero got pinched for an open container violation on the corner of 13th and 2nd
He was forced to stop then – but only at a red light. And all red lights turn green. With envy?
When I returned, I witnessed what happens when one decides never to pump the brakes on the Millennium Edition Ford Falcon. And it scares the fucking day lights out of me.
Fair enough.
Its America.
Fuck us all for asking.
Still…
My eyes have seen the gory of the dumbing of the bored.
