My Motorcycle

I had a motorcycle in my dream.
The thing was really fast and shiny.
You'd of maybe liked it.
But you weren't there to bother me
at all, which was good.
With a motorcycle you shouldn't
have to put up with any shit.

My pants were wrong for the ride.
Khaki shorts. That made me nervous.
Even in my dream I was worried.
I was trying so hard to enjoy myself
on that motorcycle. I went fast on it.
I went fast down this sun lit highway
because I thought I was supposed to.

And goddamnit, I don't have a motorcycle.
Not when I'm awake. So that's that.
Bills. I've got those. Thinning hair. Sure.
I plan on telling you about the dream.
Kind of look forward to the way you
won't really listen to me as we cruise
along in a safe car at a safe speed.

Out on the Town

Untethered guilty feelings keep me
walking up and down short blocks
of ugly, stained sidewalks. Make me
sick of myself, feel ugly. My own
rust red blood marks a spot where I
was beaten. I stop to look at it, notice
that it's fading. Mopery with intent to
creep. That's the charge for the ambling
town tour I'm taking tonight.

Edgar Allan Poe

It had been a long time since I'd read any Edgar Allan Poe, but a recent cleaning adventure in my apartment turned up an old Scholastic edition of ten mysteries by that crazy old man. When I flipped through the book, I recalled some of the cool illustrations that accompanied "The Tell-Tale Heart" in a big reader we were issued in middle or high school. It must have been high school, tenth grade, as that was the year we covered American lit. Anyway, I read "The Tell-Tale Heart" before bed the other night and it really gave me the creeps. It's really interesting to read something so bizarre with such horrific imagery and know that it was published in 1843. Yesterday, I re-read "The Pit and the Pendulum" and found it, perhaps, more disturbing than "Heart," as it really plays on overwhelming the senses with all sorts of unpleasantness.

One January, I'd like to be in Baltimore to see the Poe Toaster as he delivers a bottle of cognac and three roses to Poe's grave on the author's birthday.

Round Two: On some other shit

Back in the old days, people either forgot that pants had pockets or sewing pockets into pants had not yet been thought of because everyone was trying to jam a bunch of gadgets onto wrist watches. Pep Streebeck, Tom Hanks' character in 1987's sadly underrated film Dragnet, sports a Casio wrist watch with a small, color television screen. I really thought that Pep was cool, and that the watch was so badass. Obviously, I wanted one, but I, unfortunately, had to settle for a less awesome, less expensive Casio calculator watch, which were all the rage in my elementary school. 1990s Dick Tracy didn't do much to slow the roll on cramming more shit into wrist watches, as the titular character runs around with a watch that does all kinds of mess. People continue to make ridiculous wrist watches I just discovered via a google search. Why? No one knows, particularly when Tiger Electronics won the space race to make the best gizmo one could ever strap to one's arm years ago.

The Tiger handheld games were simple and kinda fun. You couldn't switch cartridges or play them in the dark, and were sometimes hard to play with too much light. But they didn't kill batteries too fast and did the trick on a long car ride. Taking the winning formula of their simple handheld games and turning them into something kids could have on their wrist all the time was a stroke of genius.

I didn't own any of these wrist watch games, though, I'm sure I wanted them when I saw them advertised. But I wouldn't have understood the value of the thing then, as a stupid little kid. Sure, it would have been fun to have one to play in class or on the bus, but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun or useful as it now could be. I can just imagine how pleasant meetings at work could be, leaning way back in my chair, tapping the little red buttons, making a squiggly little Batman leap and throw boomerangs at tiny digital bad guys.