*good morning kerouac

A little first thought best though piece that I thought I'd share. I wrote it on the morning of August 11th and (to keep with the Kerouac ideal,) haven't changed anything, with the exceptions of spelling and occasional capitalization. I hope you enjoy.


Good Morning Kerouac

Nong Khai Stations's
computer is down

I'm across the street
waiting
"about an hour"
to buy a ticket

Sleep's been scarce
the last few days
and I've lost track of
my winds

but I've got one now
whatever number it is

I drink a cup of coffee
and don't feel different
which is fine

I'm also waiting for the rain
to slow
to a reasonable flow

so I can make
my way across
this 4 lane road
with parking areas
on either side
back to the station

When I'm three quarters
asleep on buses
I find that I can
sometimes hear voices in my head
and listen to them
and be amazed
that I don't know where
the content is coming from

and sometimes
I can see images
and be delighted
by how wonderfully strange
they are
and wonder how I can
watch images in my
own head
as an outsider
completely innocent as to their
composition

I begin reading Ginsberg's
introduction to Kerouac's Poems
All Sizes
but abandon it
pages in
and forward to the poetry

The first poem was written on a bus
hmmm

The second about
hitchhiking
which yesterday
was becoming an option
as I realized that overlooking pre-
long weekend commuters
could hinder the bus
situation
and I
needed to be
somewhere

The Third
about Neal Cassady
appearing in court

He offers advice to Neal

"So have another beer"

some advice never goes
out of style

So I was going to wait
till I crossed the boarder
into Lao

but
good morning Kerouac

*update poem one

I wrote this a few days ago... It's kind of a poem, kind of an update... kind of the ramblings of a drunk. hopefully more are on their way.


Curry-crab

Today I ate
two bowls of noodle-soup
I'm not sure if I'll eat
again
but there is
a bag
of curry-crab flavored potato
chips
in a grocery bag
on the floor
of my apartment

the last and
only
time that I had
curry and
crab
potato chips
was summer 2008
in Vang Vieng
Lao

Jesse bought then
when he was high but
Oonagh
had to help him
pick a flavor
because he was
high

I only taught two classes
today
but it still felt like
too much

This is the worst job
I've ever had

My Mom tells me that
it will give me a lot
to write
about

but
I told
her that
I thought
that those poems
would sound too
whiny

But I left Bangkok
last weekend
for the first time
since I moved here
two months
ago

It was great
but possibly a
mistake
because I realized how much
I'd rather be there than
here

I bought two
Bukowski books
the last night of the earth
poems
and factotum

I'm reading
the last night of the earth poems and
it's inspiring to
finally
have access to a book of
poetry

this book is the reasons
that in this
poem
I'm using lots of
lines
with only one
word

I've written
nothing
but a few letters
in over a month and
tomorrow
or a day in the not
so distant future
I'm going to transcribe
this from my notebook
onto my blog
and it will be my
first blog post in
months

I'm going to try
to do this
more often
as i force my way through
to the semester's
end

before I'm on the road
again

or at least to the bar
promotions scene in
Vang Vieng,
Lao

*boom-chaser

I started writing this piece in June of 2008. I had it mostly finished by April 2009, but i still wasn’t completely satisfied. I’ve done a few small edits since then, and a pretty substantial one in August. Today I’m in Vang Vieng Lao, an area of the world that gave this piece a lot of it’s content and this is my semi-final edit. I say semi-final because the memorization process of a piece usually leads to some minor changes.


Boom-Chaser

I rode the coattails
of boom-chaser-dharma-bums
found on yellowed pages
warped pieces of vinyl
& sometimes
downloaded off the internet
looking for something
I’d recognize when I found it

I went to ghost towns,
drank in pubs
low enough to satisfy
the high standards of Tom Waits,
drank the cheapest beer with artists
who sold their paintings
outside of motel bars
like the Hope Motor-Inn
where on my first day of tour
I listened to Ken Paquette
tell me about his 11 or 12 kids,
how his mother was Cree
& he never knew his father
but always felt that
because of his spirituality
the he was part Sioux

I followed poets
who followed poets
across oceans
following idealists
I’d already
formed opinions about
but still, I went

I learned,
while traveling South East Asia,
that speaking English
to the locals
can be a language in itself-
for starters, forget conjugation
& those little words like “is” and “are”
just get in the way
there are a few other changes
such as word order,
but you pick that up quickly
when you’re immersed in it
sentences like “I yesterday go Palabuhanratu”
got me through
Thailand, Lao, & Indonesia

I took every train I could
played a G harmonica,
thought about being Woody Guthrie
tried to convince myself
railway security
was the only thing standing between me
& living the proper hobo life

I sat cross-legged
& drank rice whisky
in the home
of a rice farmer in a village
across the Nam Song, in Lao
& when we ate
I was told
that I eat like a Lao person
I took that as a compliment
& since that day
eating fish with a fork
seems kind of awkward

I accepted hospitality from people
who had so much less than I did
& began to theorize
that maybe
God keeps an ocean between
people like this
& money
so they don’t turn out like us

I sat in that house
elevated on stilts
on a wooden floor
with gaps between the boards
that I could have
dropped coins through
and there
a Lao boy drew a picture of me
& he included the dreadlock
that sometimes
hangs down the middle of my face
that I often draw on myself
when I document my journeys
in black pen on white paper
because my digital camera
had given out on me
a few weeks prior

I saw my ego inflate
but quickly realized
that I didn’t deserve to be
the subject of this boy’s drawing
and that his dad
was far more deserving
of being the subject
of his son’s portrait

I had given him a pad of paper
& and a pencil crayon
with rotating colours
while his dad gets every morning
makes a farm work
raises four kids
(with number 5 on the way)
& on top of that
was willing to invite a complete stranger
into his home
& send him on his way
with an open invite to return
a bottle of whiskey
to keep his stomach warm
when it rains

I was just a traveler
who in the morning
would be on the road, again
unreachable
at least to them

I looked for these vague notions
of a utopia, nirvana,
an outlet to heaven
on the road
but I didn’t find it
so I kept moving
but I also kept returning

I went caving in Vang Vieng
although I feel anxious in small spaces
& inside the hollows
of the mountains that frame the town
the thought of collapsing caverns,
Norther BC mine disasters,
and Chuck Ragan’s song
Dream of a Miner’s Child
never leave my mind

I went though,
multiple times
& each time
I tried to go further
to challenge myself-
once, I was led through
by a six year old
brought into spaces so small
that I had to crawl
on my stomach
& push my backpack in front of me-
& this one time
four of us
were swimming into a limestone cave
against a current
guided by a single non-waterproof
headlamp

I literally couldn’t see my hand
in front of my face
when we turned off that lamp
& in that charcoal dark
we sang
Jon-Rae Fletcher’s
rendition of Two Hands

I felt blessed beyond belief
to be surfing in Indonesia
but felt, at the same time
longings for my home breaks,
for water that’s cold
in an enduring way
& surfers
who look like a circus of
black seals
playing in the waves
despite the gray,
and a tree-line with needles

I kept moving
and I kept returning

I’ve been told that
that I have
what my friends call
the hand of God constantly
taking care of me
saving me from cigarette fires
in the bed of my Bangkok guesthouse
or any and every
escape that statistically
I shouldn’t make
but I do
& take for granted

I have a tendency
to view really sketchy situations as
awesome
& this is why I look back longingly
to the time spent in a dorm
in a Jakarta hostel that I eventually
realized was kind of
a whore house

I treasure the afternoons
of coffee and cigarettes
with Indonesian prostitutes
who, for me, strongly reenforced
the cliche of the
hooker with the heart of gold

I sometimes think of Conor Oberst
& how he claims that there’s nothing
that the road cannot heal
& I haven’t been coming and going
as long as he has
but I’m not sure
if I’ve healed anything
but the road is
at the very least
a good band-aid

I’d refer to someone
who walks the road
alone
as a nomad
a man of the land
but someone alone
who stays in one place
as a hermit
so I idealize the road
(or the rail or the river)
wrapping loneliness in gauze
& moleskin
until it can be passed off
as solitude

I sat on a boat
that was more or less
a canoe with a propellor
dodging rocks on the Mekong

I sat behind a European guy
who had been traveling the world
for the past nine months

I listened to the European guy
complain about the boat trip
not complying to the schedule
that he was told
to our Lao boat driver
who spoke minimal English
as if sentences that weren’t understood
could change the speed of the river
that we were riding against
if they were repeated enough

I remembered The Gum Thief
& the French Revolution
(well... I remembered learning about the French Revolution)
and how that more often than not
when things happen to people
people mostly just stay the same

& I’m not sure
what this poem is trying to say
it’s not that I’m well traveled
because I’m not

& It’s not to say
I’m different
from any other Westerner
taking advantage
of the opportunities his passport
provides

But this one time
I heard a live recording of
I Still Haven't Found What I’m Looking For
preformed with a gospel choir
played on a minidisk player
by a German DJ with a huge head
(physically bigger than mine)
In Ton Sai, Thailand

*a goodbye poem for bob

i'm in the airport in korea right now-- thought i'd share something that i wrote on the plane--


A Goodbye Poem for Bob
-a poem written in transit

When i said goodbye to you
i didn’t cry
i wanted to
i had every intention about it
but when our time to part ways came
i was in the middle
of that slew of goodbyes

But this morning i left
and i bawled my fucking eyes out
i really did
because it was the last goodbye
--what the past 2 weeks
have been building to

I cried as i said goodbye
to the people who stayed out late
and got up early to see me off
and i know you couldn’t have been there
but that didn’t stop me
from crying this morning
partly because i don’t know
when i’m going to see you again

Now, as far as i know
i’ve crossed the international dateline
and i’m about 4 hours
away from seoul korea
and i’m listening to 'Ruby Soho'
the last song we sang together
for the third consecutive time
and i’m feeling better
than i have in months

*In Pursuit of Jerry Dude

Here is a short story that i did for CRWR 480. I hope you enjoy it. (also, i'm not stoked on how blogspot and layout seem to not work together at all.


In Pursuit of Jerry Dude
By Scott Gibson

***

This story is presented as a work of fiction... names and like likeness and... um... coincidence... and all that.

***

A Cool Section Title Goes Here

Alison was driving me home from Creative Writing 480, and I was telling her about attempting a 9 kilometer longboard ride home after drinking two bottles of wine the previous weekend (I think). The conversation shifted to her weekend, and her friend’s birthday at The Cabana restaurant in the Mission and local billionaire Jerry Dude, who somehow made his way to their table and never left.

Although Jerry Dude only knew a couple of the women at the table to a very limited extent, having kids that also attended Anne McClymont Elementary, Jerry Dude proceeded to supply the table with $600 bottles of Champaign throughout the night.

It struck me, “He should finance the wetsuit friendly bar!” I said to Alison.

“What?”

“The wetsuit friendly bar!” I reiterated “You know, the Bar me and Weez and Anthony are going to make, out of the run down resort on Cox Bay... We’ll get him to fund it... well not fund, like, invest in it”

“You’re just gonna ask him?”

“No I’ll befriend him first, then, when we’re tight enough, I’ll tell him about the bar. Jerry Dude will be stoked on it, and he’ll put up the money. Really, the wetsuit friendly bar can’t not be successful, it’s a good investment for him too.”

***

The Hottest Place North of Montana

Alison had heard Jerry Dude’s appearance at The Cabana was not an isolated incident, and had seen him there herself twice. So we assumed The Cabana would be a good place to start the pursuit. I asked Alison if I could refer to her as the bait, in this piece. She agreed when we established that she was only the bait because her children went to the same school as Jerry Dude’s.

We sat on the patio, close to the entrance. I figured there would be a good place to start. I didn’t want to come on too strong. It was my first time at The Cabana, since before I went to Asia, I was far from a regular. And I had to present myself properly to Jerry Dude; I had to get into his world, or at least blend in with the vapid charm of the Mission. I had to convince Jerry Dude that I was worth the few millions of dollars that I was eventually going to be asking him for.

And we sat, and drank our drinks. Nursed our drinks. My beer wasn’t getting fuller and Jerry Dude was nowhere to be found. Could it be that Jerry Dude is just a weekender and spends his Wednesdays reading to his kids or volunteering at the hospital? I hoped that wasn’t the case. I usually had time to grab a drink at the Cabana once or twice a week, but volunteering at the hospital is a commitment.

The glass emptied to my reflection. And like I was driving though a tunnel, holding my breath, hoping that everyone else in the car wouldn’t notice I was doing it, I didn’t acknowledge the empty glasses, and waited just a little longer.

Alison brought my attention to the door; there he was, Jerry Dude. Walking through the door, glowing like a Greek god as his shirt shimmered a vapid gold and green. There’s not many middle age men who can pull off done up and scruffy as well as Jerry Dude. He looked as hollow as I’d expected, which I have associated with being a plus when trying to extract money from someone.

Alison suggested playing by debit as it would bring us into the closest proximity to Jerry Dude. At the debit counter I stared at Jerry Dude as much as possible, without looking like I was staring at Jerry Dude. As we walked out I turned to Alison, “Wave to him, and then we’re set up for next time.”

***

My Wet-Suit Friendly Bar

Think about it. A bar with grip on the floor, that can easily be hosed down at the end of the night. Right off Cox Bay, one of Tofino’s main surfing spots, the most consistent in the summer. There’s an abandon resort there, no one’s using it, and it could easily be converted. the problem lies in purchasing said resort. The solution lies in Jerry Dude.

I’m torn about using glass in the wetsuit friendly bar. I don’t support using plastic, but I do support people being able to walk barefoot.

I was traveling though South-East Asia this past summer and I wondered why no bars in Canada have hammocks in them. My wetsuit friendly bar will totally have hammocks.
The reason that the bar couldn’t fail would be that, in Tofino, there are only 2 other bars (and one of them only is a restaurant with a pub section, the other has eared the affectionate nickname of “The Dirty Maq”), but neither of them are near the resorts. So in the summer we make the money from the tourists who are coming right off the beach, and in the winter we become the main watering hole for the people living in the Tofino staff accom(modation)s.
Jerry Dude would really benefit from this investment.

***

The Other Scott in Jerry Dude’s Life

Not long after my first Jerry Dude sighting Alison spotted him again. Jogging: no shirts need to be as tight as his was. I would assume that his ipod was playing the Scott Stapp solo album. (Scott Stapp is the former singer from the band Creed.) I Wikipediaed Scott Stapp. Scott Stapp, in his Wikipedia picture, was also wearing a shirt that presented more nipple than I needed to see. Coincidence?

***

Scott and Jerry Dude go to Thailand: A Jerry Dude Fan Fiction of Sorts

I had told Jerry Dude that I had bough hammocks in Ayutthaya for 20 baht a piece (under $1). Within 48 hours we were in Bangkok; Jerry Dude makes things happen.

We sat on Khao San Road beside Chan’s beer and bucket cart. I told Chan that Jerry Dude was my rich-uncle while Jerry Dude ran to the bathroom. I was kind of embarrassed to be with him, and I felt that a family tie would be the best excuse for me to have crossed the world with him. He was excessively drunk (I was too. Had i not been I may have realized there was no reason to say that he was my uncle,) and way making passes at an uninterested Chan.

I convinced him to try silkworm larva, but he began vomiting before they reached his lips. I took off my checkered bandanna and Gave it to Jerry Dude to clean up with, and apologized profusely Chan. She wasn’t that upset, it’s happened before.

The next morning I woke up on the floor of Jerry Dude’s room. (He had an air-conditioned room.) I was wearing a shirt that I had never seen before and my dreadlocks smelled worse than usual.

I walked to a store and bought two 1-liter water-bottles. I began drinking one and brought the other one back to the guesthouse. I placed it beside Jerry Dude’s head and left. I walked towards the bookstore that I had been to yesterday. There wasn’t a poetry book that I wanted yesterday, but I like looking for books.

***

Lisa the Alumni

I hadn't stalked in weeks. and quickly the stalkless weeks became stalkless months. I intended to, but my student-budget had already demoted me to box-wine; going out for pints was out of the question most weeks.

Jerry Dude was proving a more difficult target to acquire due to the lack of time and resources at my disposal. The clock was watching me, but, unfortunately, I was not watching Jerry Dude.

However, I did find out that a girl I knew from high school, who was a couple years younger than me had worked at Cabana. I asked her about Jerry Dude. She said she didn’t know much beyond him being rich and kind of dirty. I told her that we’d grab a drink some time and I’d try to extract a story from her. She said that she liked the phrase “extract a story.”

We never went out for drinks.

***

Scott and Jerry Dude go to Thailand Part Two: The Snake

Jerry Dude is wearing his custom made snake-skin blazer and boots. Apparently in Thailand you can choose a live snake and get clothing made out of it’s skin. I suppose it’s somewhat similar to choosing a live lobster. It’s also highly illegal.

We spent fours being questioned by Thai authorities, all of whom spoke minimal English. However, during out interrogation there was a shift change, and an official who spoke Mandarin came on. Jerry Dude is apparently flaunt in Mandarin and somehow we left fine free, but only after the officials shared a pizza with us. It was a meat-lovers pizza, but I ate it anyway. I felt that putting on a good face was more important than sticking to my pesco-ovo-vegetarianism.

I’m not going to lie, I enjoy the times that I have to eat meat.

***

Not the Box-Wine Tonight Thank-You

I was at The Cabana with Alison and Lindsey, there to celebrate the survey that Alison and I had failed to accomplish earlier that day. We looked for Jerry Dude but didn’t see him. However, the smoked salmon pizza was fantastic, even if I did have to pick off the bacon.

***

Passing the Torch?

I was about ready to head to bed but a friend began talking to me online. He had started a website showcasing the music of the Interior’s composers. He told me that the idea is for his website to be resource for film companies to find scores and composers for scores in their movies.

He tells me that the talent is here, and he just needs an investor.

*the dirty glass chronicles

Over the last while I haven't had much time to write music, but i've been getting back into it a bit. This song will hopefully be coming out on a split CD with me and Stephen Nettleton.

The Dirty Glass Chronicles

Whiskey from a dirty glass
is clean enough to drink
The fridge if out of ice-cubes
so it’s water from the sink
It’s nice to have you hear my friend
so come in and sit down
It’s a far cry from top shelf
but let’s pour another round

You call yourself a traveler,
no where to call your home
I hope you can find comfort
in bar stool legs, longer than your own
This town will never be forgotten
but we’ll drink to every ghost
of the ones who sat at these here stools
and the ones who come and go

Tomorrow I’ll be leaving
just a rucksack and a book
But won’t be able to forget
the way I think I should
Just the same I’ll take the train
cause it’s time to move on
to another place, a blank page
I’ll be scribbling upon

The road will take me in
It’s somewhere to begin

Sleeping on the floor
doesn’t phase me anymore

I’ve never held a pickaxe
but I’ve found some hearts of gold
The only times I’ve seen angels
have been alone on the road
The ones who share a cigarette
the one’s who share a word
the ones who bring out a dirty glass
where stiff whiskey is poured

Then I’m on the road again
then I become the ghost
an ever distant memory
that once sat in the house
(But) once a man gave me a bottle
and I carried it on my back
until I passed it around a table
where half the world sat

Whiskey from a dirty glass
is clean enough to drink
The fridge if out of ice-cubes
so it’s water from the sink
It’s nice to have you hear my friend
so come in and sit down
It’s a far cry from top shelf
but let’s pour another round

*my poems from the ubco creative writing anthology

CRWR 126 Alumni (OUC equivalent: ENGL 126)

Who would have guessed
that 4 years later
we would be the only ones
still sitting in this bar
(I used to call it my bar,
but I can’t name every bartender anymore)

I think that one night we had ten poets
around one table
competing in wing consumption
smoking cigarettes (because it was still legal)
or telling stories of abandoning
the nicotine vice
all drinking $10 pitchers of Winchester
or the house red (and stealing the vessel)
in practice of the perfect Wednesday

Poetry was something new
to me,
at least in the way I interacted with it
I felt like everyone around me
was the next Charles Bukowski or
e.e. cummings
and in this dingy bar
there was a place
for all of our first-year-brilliance

But if we were to try
to take the group picture,
that we never took then, now
most people would be unavailable
in fact it would be just us
in a bar that neither of us frequent
where the cheap pitchers on Wednesday
are Blue instead of Winchester



The Banana Pancake Trail (Plus Java)

When someone tells me their travel plans
I tell them to make sure to take time
to walk the road alone

It’s not what I planned to do
even though my flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong
was on a plane filled with strangers

In Hong Kong my friend met me
as soon as I’d passed security, he was expecting me
while he explored the city alone for 3 days

Once we were together we ran across the airport
to catch a plane to Bangkok
were we’d find seven more of my friends

To make things happen in groups of more than two
can be like pulling teeth
and even pairs have their limitations

Alone means the itinerary is yours alone
and the only baggage you carry
is the baggage you bring

But it means that no one will carry that baggage with you
if you stumble or start to burn out
and if you can’t carry it on your back, leave it

When someone tells me their travel plans
I tell them to make sure to take time
to walk the road alone

Because in walking the road alone
I learned everything that I need to know
about leaving