give up
and you will die before the rest;

and if you try,
well,
you’re still going to die.

built up
and dropped

raised
then
razed

Drinking alone
in Omaha,
me and the old bartender,
Jack,
who’s bar i’d passed a few times
the past few days

and saw him,
this old man,
sitting by himself in the bar,
with no bartender
and no patrons,
and i thought
i’d give him some business
because the alternative
was
uninspiring:
sitting in my room
again
drinking beer
alone
or i could go do the same thing
down the street
and feel what it’s really like
on a Thursday night
in Omaha,
November seventeenth,
twenty-eleven;
so i pulled my bicycle
out of my work van
and rode down the
cold night
street.

Jack was sitting outside
looking forlorn,
another day of emptiness
at his bar,
and then i showed up,
and as i rolled up
he went inside and got behind the bar,
and i don’t know why i said it,
i’ve never said it before to anyone in my life,
but i said, “Howdy.”
And he said, “How you doing? What’ll it be?”

My beer choices were Bud and Bud Light.
Behind the bar was a well stocked shelf of
American and Canadian Whiskeys
and gins,
one large bottle of Vodka,
and some cans of soda in a see-through mini fridge.

“I’ll take a Budweiser please.”
“That’ll be 2.25.”

I sat there drinking my beer watching a college football game on the TV behind the bar.
Jack sat at the end of the bar watching it too.
It was quiet. It was like that for a while.

Then i asked him his name.
“Jack.”
“Nice to meet you, my name’s Brandon.”
“Where you from Brandon?”
“Los Angeles… How about you? You live here you’re whole life?”
“No.”
“Oh yeah? Where are you from originally?”
“Iowa.”
“So you just moved a little west huh?”
“Well, when the sheriff points in three different directions and tells ya, ‘You can go this way, this way, or that way, but you can’t stay here.’
You end up here.” Jack said, then took a drink from his mountain dew.

“You ever been to California?” I asked.
“Once. The northern part.”
“San Francisco?”
“No, we never reached the coast. I was going bear hunting in Idaho, and we traveled down into California.”
“Oh so you were in the Sierras? Did you get any Bears?”
“No. We ended up back in Idaho, and then our cabin got snowed in for three weeks.”
“Obviously you had enough supplies to make it through, you’re still here. Unless you had to eat someone.”
Jack laughed. “No we had a months worth of supplies, but there was six of us, so it was only about three weeks. Fucking snow was up to here.”
He raises his hand above his head. “We couldn’t get out!”

And then in walked an old surly Omahan
that sat between us
and without a word to each other
Jack turned around and got the man his usual,
a can of Miller High Life
and a box of Marlboro reds,
and i let the conversation go
and watched the football game
and drank the rest of my beer.

Jack could see in the bar mirror
that my drink was gone
and he asked if i’d like another.
“Let me me get a Jim Beam on the rocks this time.”
He kind of liked that, “Bourbon? You got it.”

I fucked around with my phone
for a second, posted a picture from in the bar online,
and finished my whiskey
and asked,
“Hey Jack can i get another Budweiser.”
“Another? Alright.”

And as i drank that beer, the whiskey sank in
and i contemplated everything

started feeling like
this would be the rest of my life
alone with my self,
no one waiting for me,
no one wanting me.

One could disappear in Nebraska
for an entire life
and never return.

Omaha
is a purgatory.

I finished my beer and got up from the bar.
“Take care of yourself Jack, it was nice meeting you.”
“You take care too, Brandon.”

Just me,
the cows,
and the country.

Falling into a job
that Kerouac would envy

was meant to be.

ii.

We’re alive,
and events transpire.

If something happens
then that was what was supposed to happen in the universe,
because it already happened,
so you can’t refute it.

It was calculated before the big bang.

Within this universe,
all that transpires
exists in a super-unified field theory equation
that combines the regular unified field theory (yet to be discovered)
with the infinite unified field theories
of infinite amounts of
universi and their
varying amounts of perceivable
and usable
dimensions.

Me typing this
is completely explained
and predicted
in that infinite
equation.

iii.

I guess that means
getting my heartbroke again,
like i don’t mean nothing,
was supposed to happen
so i can realize that
i don’t mean anything.

It’s actually quite liberating
once you realize how self-unimportant you are,
you can let go of giving a fuck about about a lot of things.

You can drive a van full of heavy gear
through the back country
of the United States
“tornado alley”
passing giant big rigs at seventy-five miles per hour by inches
coming the other way
with complete confidence
in knowing
a big gust of wind
could blow that big rig into you,
and you go…
you fucking leave the earth in a twisted bloody metal flash,
and you’re a quick blurb on the local ABC Kansas affiliate
as an unnamed motorist in a cargo van
killed
when a big rig collided with you
on Highway 40
outside Winona.

iv.

Prologue:

Everyday
is open,
fear disappears,
and every rejection
and every disappointment
becomes an affirmation

of why you don’t care,
of why it’s better to live a wild life
on this wild planet,

to keep on living as hard as you can,
as deep and wild and beautiful
as you possibly can.

dark notes
come off my hands,
try for light,
closed eyes
feel
the
changes…

put down guitar and start writing this
with
Morning View
in headphones,

i know i got the blues
when i’m listening to
the
incubus
morning view
album
while writing about this.

i should never say or do anything ever again.

Feel myself
reverting
into
introversion,
or am i just stoned right now?

Alone for
10 days
wandering,
thinking of a million things,
my last night on the road before coming home,
new environments
incredible stimuli
for thought,
that is
if i
care
to think,
and not just float around
distracted by pretty colors
and food.

I try to dig on different states
as if they were their own countries,
and try the local cuisine
and talk to the local people,
try to see who they really are
listen to random bits
of conversations
and look at what they wear
and what kind of jokes they make
what kind of movies they like to quote.

Working class cowboys with cowboy hats,
city slicker wannabe marlboro men,
preppy college kids,
a punk rock scene,
a scenester scene,
and a stoner scene i heard the radio refer to as “freakies”
post-modern hippies with dreads
and tribal piercings and hemp clothes,
sidewalk guitarists with hats open on the ground full of money;
and there was a bohemian take over of the
East side of Downtown Denver,
where all the beatnik hipster types get together
and eat gourmet versions of everything
and drink the best micro-brewed beers out of Fort Collins
Colorado,
and quote lines from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
and Dumb and Dumber.

II.

It rained my last night in Denver,
so i put my rain jacket on
and walked down the street
and went to the little official liquor store
filled with wine
and fridges full of mostly locally brewed craft beers
that are over 3-5.
“Hey man, do you guys have any dry days in Colorado?” I ask.
“No, not in Colorado.”
“Cool, I’ve been to places and they’ll be dry on Sundays.”
“No. We used to, then we got rid of that law. What we have here is
the three-five law.”
“What’s the three-five law?”
“7-11 and grocery stores are only allowed to sell pisswater
at three point five percent alcohol. Only stores like mine are allowed to sell anything stronger.”
“No shit?”
“They’re trying to pass a bill to allow all stores to sell all liquor.”
“That’s cool.”
“Not for me.”
“Oh Yeah no kidding huh? You go into business for yourself based on that law,
and then they pass that bill and you go out of business. That’s bullshit.”
“You got it. I don’t think it’s going to pass though.”
“Well i hope not for your sake bro. Take it easy man.”
“You too.”
And i leave
with my six-pack of Samurai Rice Ale.

I thought i’d seen a pizza spot nearby when i was wandering around on my bike
and so i took a shot
and walked up one more block
and there it was
still open,
four hipster employees
one mopping,
one making pizzas,
and one running
the register.
The fourth one i guess was just getting off his shift
or on a break
cause he made himself a pizza.
Anyway,
when i walk in, the guy mopping,
who has a big handlebar mustache
says,
“Hey, what’s up man!” And put his hand up for a high five like he knows me,
so i give him a good one and say,
“What’s up dude? How’s it going?”
“What are you doing bringing beer here? We sell beer.” He said, dejected.
I laughed, “My bad bro.”
“It’s ok this time. Thanks for coming in the rain.”
“No worries dude.”

No one was in there
but i was good luck.
After i ordered a veggie pizza
three more people came in.
“Do you know what you want?” He asked a customer.
“Not yet.”
“Ok you have three seconds to order or you don’t get anything.”
The guy looked a little surprised.
“Alright you don’t get anything.”
I laugh.
The customer’s still confused.
“I’m just kidding. Here’s a menu, take your time.”

Life doesn’t seem too bad in Denver.
Everyone rides bikes
and everyone has beards,
so i fit in when i showed up unshaven
riding around on my bike
with hipster glasses.

Then i shaved and
it was all over,
before i could be mistaken
as a serious artist with a beard
taking art photos with my digital camera,
now i was just a fuckin tourist
taking pictures with my cell phone.

III.

Denver Colorado:
a nice place
full of just as much fucked up shit
as any other city;
watched the local news…
don’t want to repeat what happened,
far too graphic for any poetic prose piece,
same
random-violence
that occurs in cities all around the world:
robberies, rapes, and murders.

You can’t escape it,
people are beautiful
and they are desperate grotesque monsters.

It was 10pm
and
the man entered the hotel
off the street,
coming the opposite direction of me.
I entered the hotel
behind him
and walked towards the only elevators
and he looked at me
as though i may be
a mugger
or
an assassin.

He looked to be
a very serious yakuzaesque
Japanese businessman,
something in his stern expression
told me he held a black belt in karate,
or maybe even
his family jiu-jitsu passed down for centuries.

I used to work for Mitsubishi Electric
US Corporate headquarters for a year.
So it came naturally
for me to make eye contact with him
and give him a head nod,
and he seemed slightly surprised
that this unshaven guy in black
who just apparently followed him into the hotel
off the streets
knew how to properly acknowledge a Japanese person,
as if i had once lived in Japan
as a samurai
in a life before
and knew the culture;
working 7am to 4pm
for a Japanese corporation in America for a year
was like living in Japan for 8 hours a day,
five days a week.

So he nodded back,
knowing the disrespect and dishonor
of not nodding back.
And i know their code of honor,
they’re a shy people
and they assume most Americans know nothing of them
aside from what we learned in Kill Bill
and “Most eXtreme Challenge.”
Especially these mountain folk in Colorado, right?

I nodded at him and he had nodded back as if we we’re adversaries
in a movie,
acknowleding that
something bad was going to happen
and that he accepts his fate with dignity.

And then we entered the elevator together.
To make it more alarming for him
and awkward for me,
he presses 5
and thats my floor too,
so i just enter and don’t press anything.
The Japanese business man freezes
as i search my pockets
trying to find my key.
Now he’s sure of it.
I’m an assassin
because he knows too much,
or at the very least
i’m a robber,
because he’s putting off the
“scared animal”
vibe, secreting
pheromones of fear
as i searched for my key,
he may have thought i was preparing
the needle and syringe
full of time-released heart attack poison
used by most
first world clandestine services.

Just as the elevator doors were about to close,
two other guys enter and hit 6,
difusing the tension a little bit;
or at that moment, in his mind, saving his life.

But when floor 5 came
i lingered back
and the Japanese business man
bolted,
he power walked out of the elevator
and i kind of slowed myself down and
let him get a good lead,
and i’m sure he was still scared
because
now i was following him down the same hall.

Finally he turned a corner
and i kept going to my room
and
heard his key quickly
go in and out of the door,
the door opening
then pulled shut immediatley,
no lag to allow the door to close on its own.
The sound of his deadbolt locking into place.

When i got to my room i
smoked a bowl out of an apple i got in the lobby
opened a bottle of Samurai Rice Ale
and wrote this.