i started to drink again, mom's got the illness, my tour looks cancelled and all kinds of regular bad emotions are coming and going on me. me and shaun and ty and some other kids went down to where the penguins roost by the saint kilda shore line, i had a nine dollar bottle of wine and i would take a sip and wince and the rotten fumes and the smell of it.

goddamn! i thought, this is going to cook my heart and turn me into a skeletor monster!

penguins are shiny animals, they came out from the rocks, they live in the cracks of the rocks the way i understand it, and they shined their white little bellies at us, you could tell they felt proud of them and i looked off at the bellies while we all talked silly dumb stuff. the penguin is a bird that swims, that is the kind of weirdness that only natural evolution would have the guts to try. i tried hard to drink my wine and i thought about natures guts.

rats where beginning to swim up on the dirt shore near us and i suddenly new that it was time to leave. rats always come before trouble. so we took back up towards the lights. lights around the bars, lights on the highway and they looked more like they were trying to fly away than light us up.

meanwhile i discovered that i didn't have much of a choice but to try and drink all my wine in one terrible pull, i put the bottle up and took alot of it on, but it got me in the end and i was bent over on the edge of the big wooden sea peir puking my guts out.

we crossed the street after i cleaned up and i saw a big horrible moving beast with alot of faces and hands, we where going right for it, with no real choice about it. i got into the people and the drinks. i started to steal beers and pizzas from drunks.
i met a hard up drunk in the bathrooms who stopped and asked with a scary lack of control "DO I LOOK DRUNK!?" "YES!" i screamed back, trying to look big and scare him too, then he said "YOU LOOK GOOD! YOU LOOK FAMOUS! LIKE THAT WEEZER GUY! WHO ARE YOU?" "I AM IMPORTANT, THAT'S A SURE THING, MY FLIGHT LEAVES FOR BEIRUT TOMORROW, WE HAVE 70 SHOWS IN 72 DAYS ALL OVER PARTS OF THE WORLD MOST PEOPLE DISMISS AS MYTHS, IF YOU BUY ME A BEER I WILL INTRODUCE YOU TOO MY BAND AND MY DRUG DEALER FRIENDS, THEY HAVE AMAZING WARMTH." i followed this man up the stairs and half way there my stomach shot through with a black hole of some kind. something was beginning to get to me, the kind of thing you keep to yourself because the pain is so heavy and rare that it would burn in a hole in people you thought you where close to. everything about the last few hours of the night was sad and hard and cold. i had "inside alone-ness" and "secret solitude".

i met a black german hip hop dancer who was trying to change the way we see movement and a skinny middle aged italian woman who designed clothes for rich men someplace in venice, i spoke to them and the black hole got bigger, i hid my face for a while in the bathrooms, i was drunk and out of my mind with a pain i couldn't understand. in a certain kind of light everyone becomes like werewolfs and swamp monsters, i could see the fangs and fur everywhere i looked.

i spoke loudly with alot of laughter all night, the laughter was fear and nerves caught up in my belly. i could see around me plain reasons for wanting to be alone, even in my lowest old sadness wanting to be alone was a mystery. but it came to me naturally all night, it came with the black hole and skinned me all over. i'm used to this feeling, i live with it and i don't know why. everytime it feels new but it's as old as hell. i can remember it from when i was a kid. i treat it like new, my pain and confusion needs to feel new and horrifying everytime, i can't lose that, it's too important. all of my best moves are made in pain and confusion. smooshed like a bastard between alone-ness and sadness and mystery i can see one thing for sure. like dare devil who lost his sight, but learned how to kill villians. it's a trade.

me and shaun started to hit on a jock on crack. we would squeeze his butt and he would spin like a mean bull fighter, but when he saw us he would split up in a smile and shuffle a little and put his arms around us. the night was emptying out now and the bouncers where getting violent, me and shaun led our man to the bar and he screamed: " SHOTS AND THEN BEER!" and threw bills at us, we grabbed what we could, hugged him and left like lightning bolts. into the car, into the house, into the bed, into the dream.

awake at six thirty in the morning at lauren's house, i drank a fat cold glass of pop and spoke with a beautiful pale girl named kaz, i wondered where her name came from but i had no time left to ask before i was into the bed and staring out a second story window into the early morning sky. i fell into a dream about being a dinosaur king, lonely and full of good leadership, i was in charge of the whole prehistoric desert, my name was "ODB: a Tribute" like a plastic dinosaur i carry with me from time to time.

i hope somebody knows the answer to these things, i hope the super powers that patrol the sky can see inside the bigger beasts and fools and lonely kids and say with a sureness "i know, i know, i know." because i can't see a damn thing here, i traded my eyes for better powers.