Well

Contents

IT’S TAKING SO DAMN LONG TO GET HERE (I)

Maybe not always, but a lot of the time. It doesn’t matter where I actually am, it’s all the same. For instance, I could be walking to the mailbox or driving in to work and I will get this thing—not a picture but a sort of perception, this sort of sense, in the same way you imagine the shapes of the walls and the furniture when you’re walking through a familiar dark room, that’s how it is…

BURLESQUE

IT’S TAKING SO DAMN LONG TO GET HERE (II)

We had this thing where I’d be Russia and she’d be the States and she’d put on her blue bathing suit top and her red bottoms—and I’d put on this red cape and this pair of yellow boxers—we’d both be really loaded by this point—we’d be mixing our chemicals let’s just say…

MODERN COLOR / MODERN LOVE

IT’S TAKING SO DAMN LONG TO GET HERE (III)

Somebody passed me a gas mask and I put it on. I tend to get claustrophobic so I wasn’t really into wearing shit like that on my face, but I put it on anyway and someone put a joint up to the part where the filter would go—they’d unscrewed it. I think they have better ones nowadays, this one these people got at a junk store. But somebody puts a joint up to that part and I start breathing in…

CHICKEN

IT’S TAKING SO DAMN LONG TO GET HERE (IV)

I struck up a conversation with one of the older guys, a contractor—I’d seen his truck outside, a huge white beast with his name and face painted on the side. We drank and laughed and got to know each other a little. For some reason I asked him if he’d been in the War, Vietnam, and he said, No, I had a high number. I didn’t have to worry about that shit, he said. I stayed here and took care of all the pussy…

VITALITY:
      SPAREMAN
      DAMAGE
      ACHE
      EVERYONE IN THE WORLD
      MODERN COLOR NO. 20
      THEY ALL WAIT FOR YOU (SO LONG, PART I)

INTRODUCING…

You didn’t know what to say to something like that. But I wasn’t surprised. I’d known him since we were kids. I just moved on to the next thing. He was living then in Sea-Tac and wanted to get together sometime—he wanted to start a band—and when it was his stop, he rang the bell and stood up…

ONE MORE

GUNMAN

IT’S TAKING SO DAMN LONG TO GET HERE (V)

Then there was nothing. A dial tone. I’d hung up on her. The first time I called back it went to her voice mail. So I hung up. Then I called right back and it started ringing but then nothing—I thought she answered it but just wasn’t going to say anything—you know, the silent treatment. I said, I can hear you. I know you’re there. But I couldn’t and I didn’t…

IT’S TAKING SO DAMN LONG TO GET HERE (VI)

I’m walking out the door and I turn around and I wave bye for some reason, and I don’t even know who I’m waving to, I mean I don’t know now, and I probably didn’t know then, and one thing I notice as I’m walking away is the lawn could really use some watering because all that’s left is practically dirt, and when I walk down the walk, dust and dirt go swirling up in the air around where the grass should be, which is another weird thing…

FISHBOY

GRACE (SO LONG! PART II)

IT’S TAKING SO DAMN LONG TO GET HERE (VII)

If I had to try and make some sense out of it I guess I would have to say that I worry I’m going to be waiting so long I’ll forget what I’m waiting for. Does that makes sense? You worry you’ll forget what you’re waiting for and then you worry one day you’ll forget that you are waiting for anything at all. Maybe you’ll get up one day and go to work, and after work you’ll come home and sit down in front of the TV, for instance. Or the radio or whatever. And you turn the volume down because all of a sudden you have the sense that something’s slipped your mind…

LOOKING OUT FOR YOUR OWN

THOUGH OCCASIONALLY GLARING OR VIOLENT, MODERN COLOR IS ON THE WHOLE EMINENTLY SOMBER:
THE BORDER

ALL IS WELL   ]