tonight 'll sit around pushing my shit down the drain, using a plunger and a clothespin while i wrangle wiht the chain. tonight i'll have potato chips and watch my favorite shows then watch some infomercials, then watch some tv show. tonight i'll have 9 or 10 beers tonight i'll talk on the telephone mindlessly until my ear burns from the feeling, from the strain of active nothing. tonight i'll avoid my hopes and fears. tonight i'll play shitloads of video games. tonight i'll decide too late to go get on the train and play out my stupid, misguided version of fun. tonight i'll get stupid fucking drunk and be an idiot, ashamed of what i've done. tonight i'll bang out another shitty song thats unsatisfying. its been so fucking long since i really felt any other way. tonight i'll crumple up these lyrics and throw them away. tonight i'll make promises i know i'll never keep. tonight ill talk on the telephone, wishing i had the energy to sleep. tonight i'll sit around and bitch. tonight i'll get hungry staring at the mustard in my empty fridge. maybe tomorrow i won't smoke no cigarettes. maybe tomorrow i won't look back on toight with vomit and soaked regrets. maybe tomorrow i won't drown myself in spite. maybe tomorrow i could try and tomorrow can be beter than tonight. sleep well and dream. plastic pillow that give way to someplace green. sleep well and dream

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Kevin Costner's Casino

hey kevin, exploitation's nothing new, it's perfect disguise is your head dress and authentic moccasins, you seemed just like a righteous man, exposing our great land for what is, the ultimate grand larceny. but who would have thought that when you danced, dollar signs were in your eyes, above and beyond your large share in hollywood. you were a wolf in sheeps clothing to a wolf and a people and your bad actions by far outweigh the good. the theoretical "oh, we fucked over native americans" is no match for conciously stuffing your dick in. reservations are already a pathetic compensation as are the 'rights' we grudgingly give them. a casino could bethe only way to rejuvinate collapsed economies of reservation indians. but are profits from casinos enough compensation for the fact that we stuffed a huge nation of people into a few tiny towns and raped and murdered their traditions, stole their land and beat them down? the casinos are fucking corporate run, and initial check for the use of sacred burial grounds and the casino's fucking done giving back to the indian except for janitor jobs and garbage by the ton. (tough guy eight count) and old kevin is his own conglomerate. exploitation through a movie then through blackjack and roulette. don't attend or rent his shitty films, cuz his killing at the box office is not the only thing he has killed

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A Guided Tour Of Chicago

he shuffled up a pair of surfer slippers and an old tweed blazer. asked you for a quarter and you looked the other way. he leaned up against the tow zone sign and just in time for you to avert your eyes said "good morning sir. have a nice day." she wears four wool winter hats all year round and mumbles and sometimes screams. he wears a coat made of burlap sacks and sits in parking lots, never asking anyone for anything. he's the old black guy with the shopping cart. she's the old lady with the bright blue sweat pants. they're the two young white squatter kids with dirty undershirts and rotten teeth. he's the guy who hangs out underneath the overpass shouting curse words at passing motorists, or the guy who passed in my alley, who drank until his life made any sense. he's the hustler on the train. or his four accomplices, living on three tattered playing cards and slight hand. he's darron in front of 7-11 on walton and state. she's babs up and down on belmont right by the train. he's buddy and his wife in uptown, by the aragon, he's andy selling streetwise at the white hen in boys town. he was ed from southside who gave me cigarettes and hope at wallgreens on belden and clark where inspiration dies alone.
yeah, these are the people in your neighborhood. they're the people you don't see when you're walking down the street. they're the people you don't see each day

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Take One Down And Pass It Around

one hundred bottles of beer on the floor. one hundred bottles of beer. less than twenty days from drowning in the last five years. a ring sucked from a finger. a desert that sucks dreams. sand under grass, under fountains, under trees. the pit sees only half of what you're spending roulette wheels spinning, join in on the winning. as pirates sail down sidewalks we drink beer in paper bags. no stopping, standing, homeless sidewalks, celebratory atmosphere sags and we wonder 'will it ever rain again?' we wonder on our money, on our bottled rum and gin, party central can only hold so much: lights, skies and horizons, drinks, buffets, but enough talk and games, now it's time to die. one hundred bottles on the ground and a last glance from the floor to the desert sky.

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One Day, We're All Gonna Weigh 400 Lbs.

the girls, they don't love us anymore now, because we wear black shirts and tookk a new vow. you can have the whole world right in your home, to redefine and eliminate 'alone' our tv's do the jobs of a thousand violent cops keep us inside while misinformatoin supplements our thoughts. our kids know just what they need; more monitors and screens and you tell them you can't take it anymore but you stay inside and order your food from the grocery store. your pager, you cel phone, your laptop, your mobile home, your soloflex, your microwave, your chinese take out/pizza days, your suburb, your SUV, your nursing home for your granny. your problems have all diappeared. technology betrays your fear. and if i'm lucky, i'll never have to see another hunman being except the guys on my money, the girls in my magazines, the athletes on my tv screen, the people who have sex with me via virtual reality. no garbage man no postman, no guy from 7-11, no store clerk, no soda jerk, just my companions i plug in. a pyramid for a modern day pharaoh (does it get any cheezer?). the global village can be yours if your modem's not too slow. and i can thrive and don't even have to try. download my ashes in my hard drive when i die.

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Northside, The L&L, And Any Number Of Crappy Apartments

snow piled on tables, up on scales, into bags. latenight beer and smoke, too sleepy and awake. crazy eyes over eggs, crazy eyes like mine, cloths from a streetcart, too much beer for the time at hand. night time passed by me again. phone calls that should never be made. phone calls that speed last night into today. so, where will you be in ten years? this is the part where you don't stay right here. smoking pain's a pang beneath the left ribcage. gasping idle breathing, burning to these thoughts of leaving. was it cold hands gripping fears of being all alone ni the world when i got there? i'm choking in my sleep. fostered aching tension, demented bruised inventions. unbelievable, burnt out and seasonal. and i've been saying this for years. packing bags, not cleaning all of last night's empty beers. a war of words waged by the faithless. screaming in deep sleep. unjustifiable stagnation so where will i be in ten years? hopefully i won't be here. /nose and eyes betray/you never did believe me/under my own skin/this is the part where you don't say, this is the part where you don't say

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Smokestacks

i listened to the megaphone man. he said we were facing the end. that's so much better than my mom and dad who said this is just the beginning cuz they're in love with their shiny new world. they're in love with their airplanes and cars and hotels. it gets invented and produced in mass the very next day. it seems that they've tried everything and nothing has failed. no need to wait for tomorrow, cuz everything is blowing up today. the grass beneath my feet is a synthesized version of the work of a dying perfectionist. animals and open spaces, trees, plants and sunny days are all in line to be replaced with smokestacks. concrete and power plants ... with therapy, cosmetic surgery and waist reduction plans. no compassion from our sky, smeared with billboards and dirt. it seems that they've tried everything but nothing has worked.
no need to worry about tomorrow, cuz everything is blowing up today. i'm in and out of clubs and stores and restaurants and bars dodging people and buildings, advertising, eye contact and cars. another day unfolds and the structures all get old. do you think that maybe you could save me? cuz it's coming and i don't wanna be on board.
miles from solitude. incredibly alone miles from solitude. incredibly alone 

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Detention

baseball bats and salivating mouths in a square room, doors pocked. once again i'm alone insie a crowd, a misplaced throw, a misplaced swing and everything unfolds. a microcosm of humanity, a microcosm of cold the waves wash over another. anxiety, proximity erupting from the chemistry of testosterone, isolated until the first fists fly. instincts pushed to breaking points, surging bodies, snapping joints. two shoes lost inside a fray, two socks on laminated hardwood. 360 degrees into harms way. a length of lead grazed the side of my head. as others fall and others leave and others how their vampire teeth. two chunks from my neck, four lips that drip with skin, socks that slide as the blood runs down my neck or over two strange chins. there is no way out of detention. rage pushed a doorway down. fear carried me past the last contusions hurled at bodies on the ground. dizzy terrified awake in sweaty skin, "mom, i'm never going back to school again."

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Uptown Free Radio

it's been twenty thousand days since the best ones hotels, plastic sheets, tasteless food, dialysis machines, the telephone hasn't rung since april. staring windows. ballroom jokes, resperators, kidney stones. neon skies open up three saturdays a month. the air in uptown swells. the windowpanes can go to hell slow summer walking through a bad neighborhood toothless smiles renew ventricles. the radio is live
the listeners have found their reason. the phone hasn't rung since april. the music turns alone into home 

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Eighteen Inches

face down on the ground. stormclouds lie in white snowpiles all around. i don't know if i can make it throughone more winter in this town. voted worst in show the last two years. i got a refill on my tears-another bottle of foam yellowed clear. the old man twitching on the train reminds us of mortalitly, the snow everywhre reminds us of the rain. and my burned and brittle skin, cracked and blistered in the wind is testament to repetition as the impossible happens again. Q: so, what's your new years revolution?
A: take off those ten unsightly pounds. the snow is piling higher and your face is growing closer to the ground. raising your glass at the office party or photocopying your secretary's ass is no less pathetic than our self righteously self important tasks of barfing rhetoric on shiny table tops as our collars and turtlenecks choke us right there in the coffee shops. winter will not wait for you. ironically, your worst dream has come true: pontification means nothing when i woke up and looked around, i found that my dreams had melted into dirty puddles on the ground 

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