Off World Blues 2
Tanhauser's Gate
Jxly's Flop

by Jason Nunes

When I was a kid I once saw a lecture by this poster artist from the 60's. I think I was in my mid teens. It was 2001. Anyway, he was the guy who did all those posters for the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane, you know the ones, skeletons surrounded by roses, grinning skulls with their eyeballs popping out, and joints clenched in their teeth. They made it, in one form or another, onto the desks, notebooks, and school books of a thousand wanna be rebel, stoner kids. Anyway, he had a bad slide projector, and he'd click through fuzzy photos of all his crazy posters, and mumble incoherently about them, every once in awhile throwing out funny anecdotes like how the first time he heard Janis Joplin sing, the cops got called to investigate domestic violence … stuff like that. Finally, towards the end, he clicked the button on the slide projector remote control, and with that annoying click buzz click a poster came into focus, really weird, like a big sheet of acid, lot's of little images, with a face in the center, and some strange shape like two people fuckin', or dancin', who'd made the mistake of doin' it on a day when it was the melting point of lead out. Like they were bumping uglies on Mercury or something, and that they'd somehow melted together like a reject Salvador Dali poster. And this is what he said: "you know … mmmm people always ask me if we'd get fu… mmmm high when we did the posters … nnnnn … I always tell 'em 'no way man … you can't get fu… mmmm high, and do art man' … heh heh, 'cept for this poster man! When I did this I was FUCKED UP! … mmmm … I mean HIGH man … I was high!"

You know what I miss about earth? More than the women? More than my friends? More than blue skies and Purple Mountain's majesty? I miss the drugs. I miss alcohol. I miss pot. I miss coke (when I could get it). I miss it all. I always used to tell myself that goin' into space was more than just a way to play my music and make a living, more than just a way to be the hero I never could've been if I'd stayed home, I used to tell myself that going into space was step 13. I tried all the others; admitted I had a problem, higher power, all that junk, none of 'em worked? Well, HELL, I'll just take step 13 then right?! Go somewhere you can't get, see, even hear about the good stuff. Somewhere they ain't even got a concept of what gets me 'FUCKED UP man! That great drugs rehab in the sky … outer space man! Outer freekin', blue-eyed, everlovin' space! Yeah hallelujah, praise be. Where them other 12 steps didn't do me no good, 13'd be my savior, my white knight, my Sojunor Truth delivering me to the Promised Land of sobriety! AMEN BROTHER! 13!

I guess there's a reason why it's an unlucky number you dig? 13 was gonna be my salvation, but now I got this monkey on my back. I mean it, literally. Ok, not so much a monkey, more like a slug mixed with starfish, crossbred with something soft and silky like a minx or something, then the whole ugly mess raped by the badest, meanest, most fucktest upest drug lab the wilds of Modesto California ever produced! Ok, technically he's no monkey, but he's on my back alright. Rides me like a chimp on an ostrich, one pseudo pod permanently plugged directly into the high-power line of my spine, the rest hanging on for dear life. He ain't never comin' off. I hear if he does then that's it for me, gonesville kid.

I call him Al.

Al's my manager now. See he's more than just the sugar in my tea, the cream in my coffee, the jolt of endorphins that deadens the pain enough for me to get to sleep at night, and wake up in the morning, Al's a big goddamn pain in my ass too! That's what happens when you take on a Precisellian Symbiot. Oh sure, you get high 65 ways 'till Sunday, but the suckers have a survival mechanism something fierce! See, they can't make it on their own, don't have a digestive tract for one thing, lungs or heart for another. They gotta borrow 'em see? Borrow 'em to live, like some kinda crazy, invalid hitch hiker. They know they only have one thing to offer. They know their clientele (us junkies), and they know what tends to happen to us: Liein' in a pool of our own crapulence, beggin' for out next fix as we slowly starve or hack ourselves to death. It's a shitty lot for 'em. The only way to live is to shack up with losers whose natural life expectancy isn't much more than a mayfly on a good day. Not to put to fine a point on it, they're an angry, bitter race. Grumpy, peeved, but they got to do what they got to do to survive you dig?

If there was a Nobel Prize for nagging, these suckers would take it home every time. It's the only way they get our sorry junky asses moving in the morning. (well, that and choking off the supplies. Now what the hell is that?! Pusher and drug all wrapped up into one?!?) The only way they survive, is to goad us into doing it for them.

I'll tell you what thought, Al really loves his job. I think Al's a coffee achiever, a workaholic. Al makes my crazy aunt Patty whose famous for spending two whole hours at her newly deceased husband's funeral telling the door of the casket all the things it's contents had forgotten to do in the past 50 years from cleaning the gutters, to giving her an orgasm. Al makes her look like onea them nuns. You know the ones? The ones that take that vow of silence thing? Yeah, I got me the uber symbiot! I got me the eager beaver, 'mom I'm gonna make the big time' symbiot. You know what? I'm gonna be famous (if it don't kill me first) I'm gonna play the Crystal Palace of the silicate Khanate. I'm gonna walk the casino floor of the Hyperian Pleasure dome signin' autographs. I'm gonna be big baby!

Of course, it doesn't really matter what I want. Sleep? Bah, who needs that! Happiness? That's out the door! Peace? Quiet? My own life?? Why kid myself. See, I got this monkey on my back. My good buddy. Wanna meet him? He's only lookin' out for my best interests. Lookin' out for number one. My manager, my monkey, my drug: Al!(insert triumphant music)

I just wish I'd listened to Nancy Regan all those years back. Good advice really. Remember that next time someone offers to graft a sentient, living being onto your neck, into your endocrine system. Remember those three deep, incredibly meaningful words, and just say no huh??!

Oops, I gotta cut this short. Al's starting to wake up. Maybe if I have a good show tonight Al'll shut the fuck up for a little bit. If I'm lucky. But really, only one thing matters … I gotta feed my monkey.

© Jason Nunes 2001