If You See Her, Say Hello � Conversation: So what does she actually mean to you? Well, I don�t really know�Do you think you might have fucked something up? Not certain. Well, something happened, why don't you replay it in your head? Because, that�s just regression, and I think it�s better just left dead in the water like it is. Yeah, but perhaps you could learn some sort of valuable lesson of sorts. Yeah, perhaps I could, but I�m obviously not going to bring it up with her again, it was way too much. Maybe she�ll be open to talk about it? Yeah, maybe, but again, I don�t really need to go there again. Do you really think you liked her as much as you think you did? What the fuck do you think? Well, no, I asked you, what did you really see was going to come out of that, especially in the face of how things are now? I don�t know, it just seemed �right�, fuck right now, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do, ask anyone. I�m asking you, what did you want out of it? I wanted to get closer to her, that�s all. Fair enough. Are you done asking me questions now? Yes.

I�ll be Your Baby Tonight -- She seems a little wounded. I feel like a knight in shining armor when I see her. Yeah right, I�m the one to rescue her. The last thing she said to me was �have a good night�, right before telling me straight out that she was bored and lonely, ha, just like me. Who knows, you hear rumors, and you hear all sorts of stories about girls and boys, when it comes down to it, you need to make your own judgements. She is pretty. Real pretty. Her eyes are a million miles deep, and her hair is amazing, who knows where she comes from. She always has a big smile and a hello in front of it. She always has me touching me hands and my head though. She doesn�t make me nervous like some of them do, but she does make me smile. I forget about her for days, and then I see her, and it begins again. It�s like one night full of �I should haves� and then it�s a day full of �wait, who was she?� Maybe someday she will see me in a different way then she does now. Maybe she already does, and I just don�t know it. I�m not dumb enough to think that a friendly girl is a girl that wants me to hug and kiss her and buy her flowers. I am smart enough to know what I want though. I like to let things ride like this. The underdog always wins. I will never tell anyone who she is, or what the hell I�m talking about here. I don�t listen to rumors and statistics. I listen to what the hell is right inside me, and comes out of my fingers. Some day I think I could make that smile of hers not so crooked though.

Desolation Row -- I remember it like it was twenty years ago. I remember that whole winter. I remember it like it was a bad part of my life for some reason. I had a little fun, even if I was trying to win something the whole time. Acting. Acting like I cared. A whole other group of people I haven�t seen in eight months now it seems. It�s been a month and a half or so probably. I got to know people I didn�t really care that much to know. Girls. Girls to get me off in the backseats of cars. Girls to get me in trouble. A bunch of laughing hyenas. Mixed drinks mixed with bad company and a carload of drunken boys and girls looking for that final squeeze for the night. Not the most glamorous scene I�ve been involved in. In one way it was nice to have a place where I knew a lot of people, in other ways, I�d rather just forget what I was for a year and a half. I could go on and on about not wanting to ever go back, and not wanting to get back on the train with a high engineer. This is good for me. This way, I get to have the final word. This way, I get to do things the way I want. It�s sort of good, yeah, it�s good that I don�t have that anymore. I hate having my fate controlled by anyone but myself. The night drags on every single night, even more than it did. Strangers are even more interesting to me, as I now feel like I have nobody to impress. Not even girls who think they have the right moves, and right shoes to impress me. Bartenders have never looked less glamorous. The bartender is the boy or girl that gets me to make decisions that would otherwise be waste of my money, and a waste of my saliva. Who knows, maybe all those times they put non alcoholic beer and whiskey in my bottles and glasses, and I thought I was making bad decisions. I knew what I was doing, yeah, that�s it. I knew the time I wrote about some girl that I was actually talking about someone else. Sort of like Johanna.

She Belongs To Me � No matter what, in the end it�s always going to be the one thing I need. No matter what, it�s always going to be more clear to me that to anyone else. No matter what, I�ll never let anyone in on the secrets. I�m not going to stop being vague, and eventually come around. That�s what the drinks to me. This is one main reason I stay away. People say you make decisions you otherwise wouldn�t make while drunk. This is the opposite for me I think. I�m not going to sit under a beer colored light shining in my face swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Hell, I will even go on record saying I never meant anything I said in here yesterday. That�s obvious to anyone who knows me. That�s so obvious, I can�t say it any better. I�ll go my way, and someone else will go their own way. I hold one memory in my head from the last ten years. That�s in the hot summer of nineteen ninety-seven. That summer was my favorite summer. Ask any fan of Phish how great of a summer that was. That�s not where I�m coming from. Contentment is where I�m coming from. One night, no arguments. Goodnight, and that was all. Unfortunately, that was the last comfortable summer of my life. It�s been like an elevator the past few now. It�s been a series of strange fate, and even stranger people. It�s been a revolving door of missed chances, and fuck ups left and right. As soon as someone tells me left or right, I�ll go the way I need to go, and leave everyone alone about this.

One Too Many Mornings � Dreams last night were fucked up beyond recognition. I was in some sort of laboratory. I was with three others sitting at some table. We all had these drinks in these big metal cups. There were scientists all over the place watching us. If you drank the drink you would be cloned, or turned into someone else. The two men at the table drank it, and turned into some famous black women that I didn�t know, young actresses or something like that. The drink had some sort of little balls on it, like that drink that was out a couple years ago. Little balls floating in it. I was a coward. I didn�t drink the drink. I saw movies, and television, and I knew what was best for me. They told us that we could drink it again, and turn back to ourselves, but this was not enough for me. At a little past four AM, I woke up from this dream, and had another one. I was with some woman. Not sure who she was. She turned into a cat and followed me around in the woods for a long while. I tried to lose her, but she would keep showing up smiling. Cats smile. I see it. This particular cat smiled at me saying �you can�t get rid of me�.

Queen Jane Approximately � walking on the highway feels much worse than driving down the highway who knows what�s going to hit you who knows what car is going to splash you speeding through the puddles walking through gigantic well lit parking lots has a certain allure to it but it�s all over for me now now I have the comfort of air conditioning and Art Blakey in stereo on CD even walking along the busy highways you get to at least see every little thing on the ground you can pick things up that you would otherwise not even see license plates and beer bottle caps and maybe even some money maybe an adult magazine or a letter that someone threw out the window there are all sorts of thing I�ve thrown out of my car window for this exact purpose I don�t want to litter the earth like that but I want to make that walk down busy highways exciting for someone as the drive now is just boring and doesn�t give me a chance to see what�s all over the ground remnants of some fight that blasted by at seventy miles an hour remnants of a love affair gone bad that just got thrown out the window in the form of a cigarette butt and a photo of some sunny resort town with out of towners wandering around like moses useless artifacts that I vere got to collect on trains planes or automobiles useless artifacts that the world never gets to see speeding people getting their kicks by giving me and the rest of my people little objects and ideas to ponder in the breakdown lane you at least need a hobby when you walk like that the big parking lot lights tickling the clouds with obnoxious industrial orange light it�s funny how bright yet dark and murky somewhere like New Jersey is in the middle of the night there�s all sorts of great places to walk there there�s all sorts of good stretches of highways for you to collect these artifacts I recommend it to anyone looking for a hobby I recommend it to anyone who thinks they have seen it all you haven�t seen anything until you�ve walked five miles down the New Jersey turnpike with a quarter bottle of vodka in you and a wallet full of business cards people throw these things out not knowing of me and my group of people that collect this stuff I arrange it I take it home and spread it all out on the floor of the garage and let it tell me stories all the objects on the cold cement floor have their own little histories to tell me all the objects tell me these interesting stories if they don�t have anything to tell me I put a little yellow tag on it marked needs story I then assign it it�s own history and story this object belonged to a man with tow kids one wife and a job that requires him to be on time every day and make sure people under him get things done so that he can feed his kids and get to throw things out for me and my people to collect he�s on to me he� son the take with us he sees us like chain gangs in orange vests on the side of the road collecting the objects to lay out on my cold cement floor out in the garage sometimes the men and women will put their phone numbers and addresses on the objects so that I can get in touch with them and tell them everything is okay with said object sometimes when I assign my own stories to the objects I like to track the former owners down and tell them about the stories I gave their artifacts no there will be no time capsule Mister Fredericks you won�t see the object again you discarded the object so I could bring it to life on the cold cement floor of my garage I like to spend a good long Sunday evening arranging the objects into groups this group was owned by all women from Florida over the age of forty this group had more than one owner this group is my favorite group as you can see it�s arranged elaborately on the cold cement floor of my garage as it�s a special object that has almost mystical powers that normal people would not be able to understand and that is why it is in the special group right there in front it�s like the king group of objects the big pimp daddies all get their own little seat in the house these objects get taken into the house and get the royal treatment they have big long histories that only I know about someday I may tell the stories of the objects people that are not on to this whole thing would call us pack rats or useless once this catches on though the stories will all be told and I will have lines around the block waiting to sit there and listen to the stories that the object tell I will have all sorts of secrets to tell people that want to be in the know yeah the highway is more than just a thing that connects places and people it�s a place that creates histories and stories beyond what I ver thought imaginable half of my stories I tell that people may think are lies come from these objects on Sunday evenings when I spread them on the cold cement floor in my garage the objects never collect dust they are shined and treated with the utmost care and love more that what I give to people as the objects are all people little friends of mine that tell stories and give me reason to wake up every day I look forward to collecting more of these objects over the years to show people and teach people about if someone ever wanted to join the group with me I would let them in on all the secrets as the objects are not going to just talk to anyone and start telling stories to just any old person off the street there is a long long long history with these and one day I will document it I promise yeah that�s what I will do I will write the best novel and nobody will know about my muses they will think I am just a great story teller they will all praise me and want to know where the inspiration comes from I will never let the secret out as I will write the novel anonymously I will write it from the point of view of all the objects the ones in my favorite group the group that sits in the front row those objects have the best stories and as I collect more of these the stories will only get bigger and better for now though I will spend my time developing the skills to write the stories for the blank objects the ones with no history about who owned them previous to me you will all see you will all be jealous that you cannot make things like this happen on the cold cement floor of your garage if it�s one thing I am passionate about it�s this and I can now make it happen the word is out the objects are in my possession hidden somewhere arranged into little groups like I said little groups that will tell the stories of a million men and women little groups that tell me the stories that I see as some of the most amazing stories of people just being plain human perhaps I will keep this all to myself from now on perhaps I will let them just talk to me from here on out I told the story here now the story stays on my cold cement floor out in the garage this winter will bring stories this winter I might change and let it go public I�m just not sure I trust people to understand anything about this whole thing I just don�t know if it�s time yet I guess when it�s time I will let the stories be told

before & after