More Off World Blues

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.