So I�m driving in my car with James Brown one night. We decided we wanted some food, so of course, I obliged. I wanted to have my second meal with the Godfather of Soul. A year or so earlier, I went with him and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath for some pancakes. We�re driving down route 95 towards Maryland, when he says �yo Satch, how �bout some chow?� I agreed, and we pulled off the highway into a small diner in Somewhere, Somewhere. The crackle of pebbles under the car tires was always an all too familiar sound to me. It usually meant dinner, or sleep. We walked into the diner, and of course everyone is turning around looking at us. Wondering what a sharp looking white guy like myself is doing hanging with the �8th wonder of the world�. A few people came to the table and I told them to go away, we were eating dinner. We weren�t eating dinner yet, but we were just hanging out. If you�re out just bumming around town with JB, you don�t need to be bothered by petty autograph seekers, and gold diggers. So James of course orders the �flap jacks, Jack�, and I just order a coffee and some fried eggs. We�re sitting there talking, he�s telling me about Clyde and Bootsy, and Fred, and all those guys. I�m telling him about hanging out with the Circle Jerks backstage at the Paradise in Boston in 1985, and he�s telling me stories about him and Fred Wesley driving Fred�s beat up Buick to a gig at the Apollo in 1962! My stories obviously paled in comparison to his. I ask him about the album �The Payback�, and if he realized how great of a record it was. He knows he�s the Godfather of Soul, yet he is humble about the whole thing. Finally, James Brown�s pancakes arrive and we start eating. The meal is good, we tip the waitress well, and go on our way. It�s beginning to get even hotter outside, so James suggests we grab a hotel with a swimming pool and get to some swimming. I am now about to go swimming with the guy who once sang �Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, watch out for the man with the big old licking stick�. To see James Brown in a bathing suit is to witness a rare thing. I am now probably the 1st white person to see James in his bathing suit, and to tell the truth, I�m not that impressed. James and I take a swim, there are a few people sitting around the pool, most of them old people who have no idea that a man who once said �She got to use just what she got, to get just what she want� is swimming in their pool. Some people have no respect.

So I had this dream last night. I was sort of tossing and turning to Tom Waits all throughout the night; the last time I saw the clock before drifting off it said 4:15 or something. I was in a doctor�s office with a doctor. It looked like the doctor I went to recently for a physical. It was a bit confusing and blurry, all of a sudden the doctor had me from behind somehow (I was still clothed), and he was gripping me real tight and rubbing himself against me violently. I could feel he was erect and he was saying all sorts of awful things to me. I broke away at one point and ran my ass through the ghostly white halls of this hospital and didn�t turn around once. I haven�t had many dreams lately, but this one was vivid, and it made me think back a bunch of years ago, when this kind of thing happened to me in reality. I wrote about this same thing here. Anyway, what a shitty dream. It�s been so negative around here lately. I have this constant unsettling thing going on that I can�t knock. It�s mostly the stress of work I guess. Perhaps I need another vacation. Either way, I feel like there are always a bunch of bricks falling off of this wall. I smoke too much right now. I�ve smoked 5 cigarettes writing this thing. Drinking this coffee this late is not helping either, and I wonder why I can�t wake up.

I don�t get people really. They go one way, and then they go another. Everyone has two sides, yes. I seem to have 7 sides or something. I think I help people out from time to time. I think I piss people off from time to time. I would hope the case most of the time is the former. Everyone seems to get a hold of an idea, or something they hear and immediately jump on the scene. Investigations take place, names get thrown around, in the end there is one or two people looking like complete assholes. The one thing I do hate about people is the lack of consistency. Like the guys who change their tone of voice around women they are interested in. This is one thing that makes me sick. Their voice gets a little bit higher, or softer like they are talking to a puppy dog with a pink bonnet on. Do women really dig this game? I never tried that route, and I think I�ve done well for myself with the lady I have now. Opinions on things change around different people, stories get altered to different people. �Oh, he doesn�t get to hear THAT part�. I have this happen to me all the time. You hear one thing, and then you hear a slightly different story from someone else (�So let me get this straight, he cut the dog�s head off with a sword? He told me he just ripped it off with his bare hands�). I don�t know what, or where this stems from.

I have a stomach ache yes. Tomorrow I am going to wander around Logan airport and look suspicious.

before & after