Dear Atlantic City: June 22-24

I'm smoking a rolled cigarette, listening to Elliott Smith on headphones. In the hot half of my apartment, where nearly a baker's dozen of my paintings curse at me on a daily basis, offering uppercuts and never paying any bills, just sitting there. Sons of bitches! 

I've got some beer. Tubes of paint. Type-written poems -- on the kitchen table. And a yellow ATLANTIC CITY beach towel, in a black plastic bag. Einstein's on the corner of the table -- THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY AND OTHER ESSAYS. What the fuck do I know about that shit?

There're bills on the table, too. Don't worry! I pay my share! I'm American, through and through, yes. I chatter like Pac-man, at the mouth, gobbling up my own spittle. My debt hangs around my neck. Meanwhile, I'm interested in telling all my digital friends about how: I've Got It All Figured Out.

I'd read the Einstein book out at Boot 'n' Saddle, the other day. After being caught in the rain, for the second time during that day, it's like spandex. Our realities. The inner is the outer. This is a philosophical genuflection that gets exhumed in the West. We forget everybody else, and only consider OURSELVES. We love our own reflections. So much so that we'll speed out on the highways, while gliding with our CELL PHONES in our hands. It's almost like we enjoy masturbating and swallowing our own gizzards. I'm supposed to be impressed?

Well, shit. I'm not!

I'm fascinated -- as a spavined, dog-toothed full of tears antelope on the spiritual battlefield of the past, present and future, all at once -- I want to know about the theories which are unexplored. I don't want to hear about your armpit hair. Mine grows in like a double-edged gorilla, a loner in the wilderness. You're much prettier than I am. I'm akin to invisible -- persona non grata to the opposite sex. I'm swimming in thumbtacks and grandiosity. I drink too much, and these paintings should be nailed into the drywall.

What I'm getting at is, the human race drives me bonkers. I deflect from self-love like a tiny little fly searching for water and moths. I know your self-righteousness, your projection is a lie -- IT'S WHAT MAKES THIS WORLD INTOLERABLE.

I love nose-rings. I like green eyes, blue eyes, every color under the sun, sure. As long as it's genuine. I don't have time for pretense and degenerate bullshit. If I wanted that, in my life, my chicanery, my crooked femur, lemurs, Donatello, cross-fire, selfies, you are way too obsessed with yourself to get anywhere in this world ... you'll find that out soon enough.

PRECIOUS.

If I wanted the same thing, over and over again. I'd simply look out the window. The earth offers that, aplenty, and I love the contrast of green and blue and white clouds.

Everything else is a plague. I need to go and see it.

Nobody broke your heart. You broke your own coz you can't finish what you start.

Elliott Smith is a lasting genie, floating in speakers of sound, sultry heat. I can see into my neighbor's window -- only the light with the shades drawn. I don't have any! My windows are wide open. So sick and tired of all these pictures of me...

Who'd like to see me down on my fucking knees! Yes! Elliott gets it right. I'm drunk...

I went to Atlantic City, the other night. Thinking of a way to study the human species, getting out of my own head. Working on too many projects, all at once. Needed a break from the disease of modernity. A time-out from picking at scabs, what?

First. Another swig of mango-flavored vodka and a fresh beer...

Now I'm in a room with AIR-CONDITIONING that comes from a plug and a dangling hump of a wall unit. Headphones off. Speakers blaring violins. Empty beer cans fall from my ceiling, landing on my head like an avalanche of aluminum. I groan and grin at the walls.

This is supposed to be about Atlantic City, no?

I went there. It was a Thursday. Don't ask me why. I had it in me to get out of my head, out of my own way. I got paid, in other words. Burning a hole in my pockets, invisible, no discretion, no wife, girlfriend, no speed, no bumps, no spells, just a path ... straight to Hades!

I soared (like a lunatic) toward the Broad Street Line. While I awaited the north-bound subway train, I realized: I hadn't eaten, I was going to be late for the train to take me to Atlantic City, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Also, I'd forgone the suntan lotion for the sundry pores on my face -- too precious, much too presumptuous, pretentious, praecox -- A LATIN TERM FOR 'very early' -- I'd wanted too much, immediately, without working for it, give me everything, now, love me, slobbery slavering over armpits, the things that I say are golden-encrusted entrails of a doom-ridden, addlepated, shocked chicanery, shitfaced, I'm making up words to prove a point.

There was no point.

I was just in the mood, to go...

I stood in front of the PATCO flying train, heading EASTBOUND! The tracks scared me shitless. The driver was a pro. I thought about his pension. Maybe it had been leveraged against somebody's car loan? Another driver got on, at another stop, and he penciled his way forth, toward the front of the ... what's the word I'm looking for? ... jabbberwocky...

"He bought a Cadillac for his son/daughter/spawn..."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, it's a beautiful car."

I'm sitting there, emotionally unavailable. Everything I think is laced upon the worn-out purple rust, grinding the tracks like yellow vests, killing time until retirement monies come spewing out of their globular glands of suffixes, prefixes. Is this train gonna fucking crash? Are you guys sick, or what?

We got there. Where is it that we were? Lindenwold. Take me to ATLANTIC CITY.

I waited, after purchasing my ticket. People were sitting on benches, standing around. Sweating. Waiting. Holding coolers and I was so hungry -- coz I'd forgotten to eat -- that I almost asked a trio of ladies for a cessation of sympathy, costing them three dollars or whatever they'd been willing to spend, on me wanting a bag of their FUNIONS.

Instead, I waited. A woman and her pathological son, lying, dubious, cantankerous, maybe he'll grow up to be a shoe salesman -- they turned their backs and I swiftly gouged them of their solitary bottle of WATER.

ON THE TRAIN, I SIPPED THE LIQUID WITHOUT TOUCHING MY LIPS TO THE TOP OF THE PLASTIC.

It wasn't a long ride.

Two girls were across from me, in their seats. One was asleep with headphones. The other had her legs plied into the plastic, feathers, underneath it all she was terrified of EVERYTHING, but above her casuistry, she wanted EVERYTHING, NOW -- GIVE IT TO ME.

It's weird, I learned. Some girls, young as they are, they can want your attention -- right after you give it to them, and they deflect it like you're a bag of marbles, or you're a hopscotch land of dried-out chalk, dude, why are you looking at me -- and when you stop looking in her direction.

She does everything she can, to gain your attention again.

I pretended not to care, because I didn't. Finally, I saw the marshes, wind turbines and electric lights of the casinos: red, blue and light.

Oh, boy!

I'm nearly intoxicated. This is a slingshot of words, nothingness, like dandruff on display. My writing is like if you told your pet to get a job -- and it just ended up being a nuisance, even at that. And you were like: Dude, just sleep on the couch, or whatever. Shit in the backyard. I don't know. We'll figure it out. Let's talk about it later...

Before I type up what I wrote in a little notebook, while I was down there, let me say. That I first engaged other people at a bar on the boardwalk. A kid was bartending -- I'd soon find out -- and there were two giant TVs behind him. The guy I got into a conversation with was an eccentric, wanted THE TV IN FRONT OF HIM TO PLAY THE PHILLIES GAME while behind him a group of German gentleman -- all full of moans and groans at THEIR SPORTS -- were seated and chowing on lobster tails, potatoes and cheap beer in tall glasses, fresh as daisies and ready for a brawl, bilingual and full of hair gel -- it seemed strange to me. To start this experiment with a guy who was willing to yell and argue with a kid who lived at/in Ocean City for six months out of the year, just because the thing he wanted wasn't directly in front of his face...

Ah what's the use? I ameliorated the situation by talking to him, this wacky stump of clay, with a shirt from Colorado.

"Hey, Colorado, eh?"

"Yeh, went out there for..." this, that and the other.

I listened. The TV played the Phillies' game in front of his demented noggin. The Germans settled into their secondary esplanade, and a blonde girl at the well of the bar stared at me, I stared back at her, and she kept on staring, and I thought, why?, I look stupid, I need a haircut...

Eventually, I paid my tab. The kid, the bartender, told me about the waves, surfing, YEAH, BROTHER, THANKS, I GOTTA GO SAY GOODBYE TO MY GIRLFRIEND.

Why he'd felt the need to 'CHECK-IN' with me, I don't know.

But I felt ready to jump in the ocean. And I did. Floating like a turd in a drifting sycophancy.

It was everything to me: the sun, sand, beach, ocean, water, waves, bikinis, games of football, little kids tearing out the sand and flicking it behind them like nothing else mattered, fore, aft, slide to the left ... slide to the right...

CRISS-CROSS.

I lay there in the sun, saying nothing. Feeling everything.

Here's what I wrote in the little notebook:

Fourteen bucks for a Red Bull and Vodka -- at Caesar's.

"Veni, vidi, vici!"

The bartender hands me two white slips. I'd figured it would be half as much, maybe a ten spot. That's what Atlantic City is -- a toilet for silver, gold, labor, wealth, vice, corruption -- all the things (material) that make life worth living.

"You're lucky," the gray-haired bartender tells me after checking my ID, "you look younger than you really are."

The sly devil. He must get all the ladies. He's cool, I tell you. Nonchalant. Not worried.

In fact, a waitress with big wedding bells had walked behind me, carrying a tray, and she called over to the guy.

"He doesn't see ya," she'd said. "HEY, FRANK!"

"It's all right..."

Across from me, on the other side of the bar, there's a man with a gray mustache, beside another man with a gray goatee, beside somebody's lurching grandma, beside a young blonde with her hand on her chin, and on her finger she's wearing a turquoise ring. To the right of her is an unassuming, clean-shaven gentleman. They're all playing slot machines which have been implanted into the bar.

I know it's cliche -- sort of like the Red Hot Chili Peppers ... but this is the American Dream. In an alternate universe, these people pecking toadstools, sticking their fingers in each others' mouths, looking for something. It's deep down in there, I'm sure of it. This is pure entertainment, sure. But it's deeper than that. It's a release. It's a need to let go, to relax, enjoy.

And it's a chance to make a shitload of money off of those precepts. Let's face it. A case of Red Bull is a box of cancer to keep the crowds enlivened for their work -- and play. This is a mode of the homo sapiens species to go wide-eyed at their own illusions. This is a playground for those with nowhere else to go, spiritually speaking. It's a wasteland for the downtrodden, as much as it's a middle-upper class arena for shenanigans, abortions, lines of cocaine, cigarettes, rambling conversations, victories at the table games -- victories when they're nowhere to be found elsewhere. Of course, this is also just a basic place to escape and have fun. But Caesar knew better than that elemental frequency. He wanted to conquer the world as his own playground.

Like the Devil himself.

###

The train is moving, now, and we're passing Absecon station. I'd left the casino bar and walked over to a roulette table to watch the proceedings. It took me a few spins and a change in dealers to understand that thousands of dollars -- tens of thousands, actually -- were being collected each spin. Four or five guys -- mostly Asian dudes -- were playing the game. And they were playing it well. I stood nearby a black gentleman as he fingered his chips in denominations of five. I felt that maybe I was closer to what he was betting -- in my head, I wanted to bet by turning the ten dollars in my wallet into ... what, exactly? I didn't know. That felt like a bad way to be. So I watched.

After a few spins, and some cheers from the fellas in orange, pink and blue polo shirts, a crowd had gathered, somewhat, around the roulette wheel. A very tan and calm Italian-looking guy stepped up to the table, standing to my right.

"Seven," he said. "Play the seven."

After a few wins at the table -- and plenty of tips tossed in the direction of the dealers, and even more, much more, yes, went down into a wormhole for the House.

The Italian guy looked at me. "Gonna be a seven."

I smiled. "Why do you think that?"

"I don't know," he responded. "I just got a premonition."

The next spin was something like red 37 or, no, it was 17 black.

"Close, man," I told him.

An overweight guy nearly stepped on the Italian guy.

"Whoa!"

"I'm sorry."

"You just walked right into me, man." His accent was thick. I watched him walking off in a huff. After he had told me that the green and brown chips some of the guys at the table had been using were worth $500 each.

"That guy," he'd spoke from the corner of his mouth, "just won $1,750."

"What?"

"Yeah."

"Shit..."

Three or four spins later, the seven hit.

The House must've cleaned up at least $10,000, easy.

Most of the other numbers went to shit.

###

I should go back a little bit... As I've still got some time on the train and I'm nipping at some mango-flavored vodka...

The day began in my South Philly apartment. It was hot. I'd decided to go down to Atlantic City because I'd been considering a trip there for a few days prior. Actually, I'd come up with the idea of going down there and renting a room for a few days in order to record some songs. (Which reminds me, I forgot to record some of the sounds on the boardwalk and beach!) Anyway, I guess it was my romantic side coming out of me. Wanting to do something poetic. And cheap. Only, Atlantic City -- and the surrounding beach towns -- isn't cheap. More research is needed, of course. Yes, it's important to gain the necessary research for your market. Blah, blah, blah. I wanted to do something spontaneous! After working too much -- I'd needed it.

So I got paid from my freelance copywriting work and from the toilet, I decided it was a Go.

I'd nearly missed the train from Philly into New Jersey which would've got me on the train to Atlantic City by noon. On an empty stomach, I rode across New Jersey, after stealing a bottle of water from a small child after he and his unsuspecting mother had both turned their backs...

Shit. Where am I going with this?

Well, it's hard to write with a pen on a moving train.

What I'm trying to say is that my skin is now tan, red almost, I've got salt in my hair, -- I'd rode on down, listening, with my eyes wide, and two girls were hitting each other on the train, in the seat across from me. Giddy with escapism.

The ride wasn't too bad. I read Dostoevsky's "The Gambler", in order to keep me in the frame of mind as a "degenerate" writer. Soon enough, I could see the fans and turbines, spinning around every six seconds. All the casinos. Seagulls squawking. Sun shining mercilessly. Empty stomach -- on the hunt! Numerous persons all away from their jobs on a Thursday afternoon. Ten bucks to get there. Lunch on the boardwalk. $25 bucks -- including tip, to a first-time bartender kid who lives down in Ocean City six months out of the year. Conversation with an eccentric guy who nearly spazzed when a group of Germans wanted the soccer game on. Strange, thousands of dollars of alcohol, 50-70 inch TV screens, groans from grown men. A girl stared at me. I jumped in the ocean. Refreshing...

I'd won $11.

From a computer roulette game in Bally's.