Old Folks: The Spent Effluent Collection

I can buy a book about Jane Fonda, I can buy a book about Goldie Hawn, both trying to look glamorous in their old age. They look old.

Oprah has on Maya Angelou. Her Hallmark Life Mosaic Collection.

Old Folks once published a pamphlet called Old Folks: The Spent Effluent Collection.

Dr. Maya Angelou, Inaugural Poet,
Lifetime Professor of American Studies
at Wake Forest University, the Reynolds Chair,
signed a contract with Hallmark Greeting Cards
to produce her Life Mosaic Collection, thoughtful sentiments
about being a Renaissance Woman, as seen on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Run the gamut of emotions from doggerel to treacle. Mawkish to utter tripe.
That's what Henry Chinaski had against Eddy the Bartender, in Barfly,
a lady's man. He was so obvious. Short of papal canonization,
you can't go wrong with Oprah. She has her finger on the public
flutter.

Art Brew signed a contract with himself
to produce the Art Brew Spent Effluent Collection.
As sold at a stand-alone kiosk in the mall, in the bookstore,
between the fiction, the poetry, and the creative nonfiction bins.
A Professor of Cracker Studies, emeritus. Holder of the Oxditch Chair.
When the ox is in the ditch, one rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.
"Hard to classify. What genre is this? Verse of angry would-be poet!"
5 on a scale of 1 - 10.

I guess the Art Brew Spent Effluent Collection
will turn out to be a self-published pamphlet,
embedded in whatever book he's writing,
the saltier ones redacted, so as not to offend
anyone, or attract the attention of the
Ideological Rectitude Officer,
at work. Black History Month
is now known as African-American Heritage Month,
and runs from MLK's birthday, in January, to Juneteenth,
when the slaves found out they'd been emancipated.
It's only fair. The playing field isn't level, yet. And to
bring it into balance we must tip it. And tip it. And tip it.
Object to the word niggardly, because it means stingy, or mean,
and to renege, because it means the shift change at the Burger King.

Gerald was in a wreck, and took a lot of transfusions.
Members of the Seamen's International Union came
and donated blood for him. Afterwards, when he was on the mend,
a woman from Administration called his hospital room, and said,
"Mr. Brown, they bes something wrong with yo' blood."
She meant the paperwork. He thought she meant AIDS.
Savagery, barbarism, civilization.
What's wrong with this picture?

When Brew was in high school,
it was before air conditioning
in South Florida. He had phys ed
in the mornings. He dressed out,
and took a shower afterwards.
He used the new deodorant soap,
Lifebuoy. Their ad used to say, "B...O...."
But when you sweat, with Lifebuoy on, the smell
was worse than body odor. Beyond medicinal.
More like fumigate the trenches, the mass graves,
George Long used to think that sweat smelled masculine,
and would borrow one of Mike's shirts, out of the closet,
when he had a date, because he was younger, and didn't
sweat as much. I wash my armpits with a vinegar rinse
to kill the bacteria. Mr. Natural. I like to sit in a room
under a ceiling fan, typing away, with perspiration running
down my sides in rivulets. It makes me feel like I am really
working, instead of just imagining words to put on paper.
It's cleansing, like a sauna, or a medicine lodge.
I write like a man killing fire ants,
or shoveling dirt.

Lacrima Cristi. Tears of Christ. A well-known red wine
from Campania. Bukowski cries at Judy Garland movies.
I bawl like a baby listening to the Metropolitan Opera,
on Saturday, and at home, watching rented videos,
and at bluegrass festivals, recitals, concerts, weddings,
funerals, christenings, female circumcision ceremonies
among Australian aborigines to remove the clitoris,
a dingo stole my fiddle, Justin says, no resin for his bow,
show up, on time, your shoes shined, knowing the material.
A total professional. I write no matter what my mood is.

Once I had the flu
and puked so forcefully
I ruptured a blood vessel
in my esophagus, or something,
and filled a bucket full of blood.
That will scare you straight.
Bukowski vomited blood that smelled
like beer shit, from stomach ulcers.
But after he got well he drank again.
He was only temporarily indisposed.
He had a strong constitution.
A requirement for a writer
if you live the life you write about.

One time I was on a team,
installing a TACAN at Kunsan Air Base,
Korea, in the winter. We all lived in an open bay
transient barracks together, shit in a latrine with no doors
on the commodes, worked together, rode a weapons carrier
to chow together. There wasn't much chance to masturbate.
We were at the site, preparing to flight-test, and the others went outside,
to stand in the antenna radiation pattern, and left me behind to record
the meter readings. I was alone in the building with a narrow window
of opportunity, which I took advantage of to take advantage of
myself, into a paper towel I secreted in a packing crate.
Later, the Team Chief, looking for something to wipe a spill up with,
found the wadded up wad-evidence of the wad I shot, and said,
"Jesus Christ, if you blow your nose in something, flush it
down the toilet, will you." Miss Manners. Making a rule
for To Whom It May Concern. I acted innocent.
Everyone else was nonplused. What the hell
was he going on about? A scumbag is a rubber
with a nipple end, so thin you can read
a newspaper through it. Or a sergeant.

In The Last Picture Show,
Ben Johnson says he used to could piss
across a water tank, but now, he just dribbles,
or stands there waiting for the flow to start.
Benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH).
Raw oysters are a source of zinc.