1.
Big In Ballard
2. Back In College
3. Old Friends
4. So Many Things That
Can't Be Achieved
5. Aphorisms
6. The Soundtrack Of His Life
7. Golden
Pear
8. The Vulnerable Hours Of The Morning
9. Long Black Cadillac
10.
Bad Boys Beneath The Bridge
11. Megan
12. Soap Box Preachin'
13. In The
Park After Dark
14. Blues On The Avenues
15. Dropping Bombs In The House
16.
Come On In, California
17. Conversations In The Clubs
18. A Song About Seattle
19.
Rock In Seattle
20. Hail, Hail Seattle
BIG IN BALLARD I
was big in Ballard before I was big in Belltown
Got hosed by the Firehouse
when the sleazebags were booking
Kept kicking and clapping till the crowd
couldn't chatter
Drove an '84 Buick till it burned out in Burien
Spent
a spell as a painter and a spell as a Centurion
Met many men making meteoric
money for Malaysians
Met a chap at Hattie's Hat and his name was Octavian
Brutas battled me in Ballard like a bombed-out barbarian
Went out with Lucy
because she looked like a hot librarian
Went down to Belltown and got boozed
with a Sicilian
Turns out he was a motivational speaker who rapped about Pygmalion
He used to be an artificial, sacrificial, inessential expatriate
Got referential
and presidential over the inessential immediate
He played washtub bass with
a coalface nutcase and I sat sucking the fipple
We were eaten alive in 1995,
I spoke white-boy jive, saying what are you cripple?
The hot librarian took
care of an octogenarian and I almost had her
But she stayed home on Saturday
night watching re-runs of the Black Adder BACK IN COLLEGE We
ate flapjacks at IHOP, we drank 40s at Bixby's
He tripped and slipped down
the stairs in his boxers
That was after the third annual party for the flutes
I put my loot in my suit and had a pink tie to boot
Came home and wrote words
till I ran out of paper
Ate Tombstone pizzas and ice cream full of sugar
I went through a phase when I tried to read the Bible
I loved Genesis but
got lost on Exodus and End of Days
Or the part where Lazarus came back from
the grave
I met a girl, went to Bucca di Beppo and then had leftovers
Too much food for one meal, one night, but I got to sleep over
She called
me on a her cell phone, I had a land line
She said she was too booked on her
Daytimer all the time
So I wrote 10 pages based on Prufrock and took a few
pics
Listened to Blonde on Blonde 50 times, wished it was 1966
But she
was too indie rock, I was too poor-college guy
In 1999 I asked someone to
describe my look
He said I looked like I was working with a 1994 hook
I used my pain and passion to fill 10 full leather journals
I pondered the
truth and I looked for the kernel OLD FRIENDS Andy asked Abigail
if anyone acted asinine
Bradford began barking about benefactors being benign
Carissa cooked a cake for the campus Christ Crusade
Dorsey dorked some ding-ho
than derided a douche bag
Elizabeth had tea and meth in an elegant equestrian
haunt
Fickle Fred crawled into bed with a teenage debutante
Gregory gesticulated
in a grand and gregarious gross out game
Holly haggled for hush-puppies at
the Hochi-man parade SO MANY THINGS THAT CAN'T BE ACHIEVED There
are so many things
That can't be achieved
But you must try your best,
In the face of that fact In the face of the rising costs
Of homes
in this fair land
The fact that you need a roof
Makes you work as hard
as you can And not give up on the dream
Even if you don't believe in the
future
And your old friends try to beat
Its meaninglessness into your
mind
You must try to see some light
In each day you find APHORISMS
All the poets are pissers, all the pilgrims are pagans
The madcap
hoodrats get caught stealing Kit Kats
The suburban soccer moms were the shit
at the proms
The dimestore dandies hooked up with the tarts and the candies
The accountants cannot stand being outnumbered by managers
The nurse sees
her dying mother and hurries to bandage her
The rock n' roller sells his soul
to the radio program director
He's told to move to New York where he can uncork
the rock career THE SOUNDTRACK OF HIS LIFE Bill said, "One day
that will be me"
The garage was full of boxed up things In his mother's
house, he sat
While Van Morrison would softly sing One of those pretty
ditties
That made him forget that life was shitty He pressed his face
against the window
He saw the cars speeding through the snow He descended
to the room in the basement
Where the party people came and went And The
Band played lightly
Levon sang for Fannie nightly Bill couldn't speak
when he heard the car drive off slow
Pulling out and kicking up rocks as she
goes GOLDEN PEAR He said let's meet for dinner at the Golden Pear
You know that I know the manager there He always pays close attention to detail
And he gets his hair cut where I get my hair cut My father parks his car in
the parking garage above the stairs
Of the restaurant, so it would be easy
for us all to meet there Even though Jim has a commute from the burbs
Amongst the suits after long commutes he can't disturb The old order that
sometimes is plain awful
Sometimes the fancy restaurant feels like a brothel
He tells me to meet him on Wednesday night
Then he talks on his cell phone
and I sit alone Across the table while the shrimp plate piles up
He said
he wanted to talk, but he didn't say a word I tried to refer to the old times,
but he didn't bite
He said he gets tired after work on Wednesday night
I thought I'd throw my napkin down on the floor
Curse his rudeness then head
for the door But as usual, of my intentions, I'm a little unsure
Plus,
he always knows a good place to score He's got a lot of friends so he takes
me for granted
So long ago this sad seed was feebly planted He's got a
new pair of khakis and an SUV
And sometimes I feel like he's burdened by me
But I guess it's just that he says stuff to your face
That other people
would say behind your back Sometimes on Thursdays he likes a Big Mac
His
personal trainer struggles hard to keep him in check He's got a million friends
and they love him to death
But sometimes they don't return his phone calls
THE VULNERABLE HOURS OF THE MORNING I. She said, "I've always
dreamed of Europe"
I said, "I think I might throw up" It was 6 in the
morning, we were in college
And my parents had recently told me to grow up
But my party buddies liked to see me
As long as I didn't stay over
Several times I fell asleep
In the back of a Range Rover II. It was
6 in the morning
At Joel's house
It was Joel's third residence
In
2 years I had his phone numbers
All scribbled out in my phonebook
I told him this was inconvenient
And he shot me a look He said, "Get
a cell phone,
It's the new millennium"
We wanted to be 23
That was
as far as we could see III. We were drinking all night
And smoking
Camel Lights I said, "Let's smoke GPCs,
I don't see the difference"
At five in the morning
I liked to make an obscure literary reference
But nobody heard, so I felt bad
And the neighbors got mad While we partied
on the deck
The old neighbor put our asses in check I think we sang some
Def Leopard song
I think we sang at the top of our lungs He didn't like
the havoc we wreaked
He was afraid that we would ruin the country someday
IV. We went out to Beth's for a 6am flapjack face off
Then Joel repeated
what he'd done at IHOP He did a little number with the blueberry syrup
The waitress didn't like the seasoning, she wouldn't come near it Joel got
ejected, the cops were called in
We ate our flapjacks in peace and pretended
we didn't know him V. Her friend was Vietnamese
She always felt tense
in situations like these She liked to talk and talk about her family
It
was appropriate for this community There are important pieces of conversation
that you learn to discard
When you party real hard in somebody's back yard
VI. It was cold in the kitchen
We were making frozen pizzas We
were listening to the Stones
We were discussing margaritas And Joel said,
"You can't beat this"
I said, "Wait until Christmas!" VII. You see,
sometimes you get in Devil Mode
And the fire in your heart just seems to explode
The room starts to spin, the euphoria sets in
And there is no place that
you cannot go So at the time Joel had just moved from his old place
We
went back up to see if we could be the faces But we got real drunk again in
his old room
I think I tried to tackle some dude He was trying to put
on a good face for his lady friend
This was their first date and this wasn't
good for him I was dancing, I was wrestling, I was creating a scene
I
guess I dove and hit my head on a beam VIII. I woke up in the morning
feeling optimistic and hungover
I started singing along with Jimmy Cliff about
the white cliffs of Dover Joel rustled me up for a road trip to the coast
on Friday
We took it easy, but I felt totally hungover until Sunday When
we got back, we learned that on Thursday I'd been quite the dancer
I hit my
head on a beam while I was being such a prancer The Pulp Fiction soundtrack
was playing in the Lancer
That quelled my fears about brain cancer LONG
BLACK CADILLAC After tea and cakes and ices
We'll push a moment to
its crisis
Bob Dylan will sing of Isis
Moses will part the Red Sea with
his devices Cadillac Black; long cigarettes, Jack
She sits in the back
with a superstar stack
Her boyfriend's a pimp and his whip goes crack
He says, "Let's go black, baby, tell me I'm back" But he's not and he's hot
and it's sweaty July
All the T-Bird girls are horning for their time to fly
Jack says, "I want it all but the days just go by
And I smoke cigarettes,
waiting for my time to die" He remembered when he sat 'neath a New York sky
Tina cat, she was cute, she looked deep in his eyes
They went clubbing, 'twas
hip, she had on a new slip
Put his hands on her hips, they both did the dip
He woke up in the morning by the burgundy walls
With a girl in black party
pants stretched out in the hall
She had taken a spill when she went to the
can
She looked so peaceful, her tiny white hands He picked her up and
she gave him a kiss
Oh, she was so beautiful, nothing could change this
She was mussed up and fucked up and hung over and young
And Jack said he was
tired, but he'd gone for a run And worked out his heart with some hot cigarettes
On his forehead was sweat, there were streaming bullets
There were poets
hovering up in Harlem in the dark
He brought the dregs up to Madison and the
dregs up to Park BAD BOYS BENEATH THE BRIDGE The boys in the white
hats pulled in under the bridge
We were keyin' in to Outsider's mythology
This is where the mythos comes from
Rascal had the big words packed in his
brain
His uncle was a Harvard man
Every day, to and from work, he rode
the train
Bob Dylan blared through the car stereo
Bob Dylan was feelin'
the pain Ricky had his cousin up for Sausalito
She wanted to jump off
the bridge
They were too many mosquitoes
The water was wide below
This was in the arboretum, near 520
I heard someone jumped into the river
And landed on a tetherball pole
So we didn't like jumping there no more
But the boys in the white hats
Pulled into the parking lot
It was afternoon
They were children
But they were almost old
They didn't want to be fathers
Ricky's cousin's name was Sherry
She jumped off the bridge
The water splashed
We were OK in swimming suits I always remember these times
When I'm faced
with real-world responsibility
It don't suit me so well
So this is the
tale I tell MEGAN Megan walks me to her apartment by 55th
You
can hear the cars up on the bridge
You can sleep on her hide-a-bed
You
can tell that she's intelligent and fierce
You are scared but you are intrigued
She has nothing in the refrigerator
She doesn't like the food in Seattle
You're looking into her eyes
And you want to tell her that you want her
Megan
Oh, Megan
Let me in SOAP BOX PREACHIN' Do you remember
Clinton?
Everybody loves a charmer
They're doing it out in New York
They're doing it in Frisco
Let's sashay to the capitol
Let's put our bill
before congress
We all have our concerns
Sometimes the American flag is
gonna burn
We are all Americans
We all have rights
You had a Prince
poster on your wall
Purple Rain Outside it is hailing
I think it is romantic
to be indoors on a Sunday
When the rain is falling outside
I heard that
poets aren't grounded
That choosing to be a poet
Wouldn't be a good career
choice
I said, "I'm not fit to be a father
I don't have the money
Or the will to deal with all of the bother" We listened to Bell Biv Devoe
We listened to the black music
We dug Mississippi John Hurt
We loved Little
Walter
We loved the ache in his voice
We cried sometimes
Remember
that time you thought you were pregnant?
Remember that time you were losing
your mind?
And people were having seizures
This is too much pain in the
maelstrom of society
In this hailstorm of insouciance and disinterest
Oh, the ten the wives have their agendas up in the suburbs
I love the long
winded and loquacious
I love the way the spaces are so capacious
I love
the way the paint is always fresh
I love the way they wear their dress
I love the lemonade by the white, wicker baskets
I love the way they always
had some formal musical education
Piano playin', Mozart, and erudition
IN THE PARK AFTER DARK I got bombed at Bi Crake,
I got toasted
at Targy's
I moved from 80th to 8th
And I always hit parties
Highland
Drive came alive
In the summer of 1995
Our saviors drove Bentleys
And our parents drove SUVs
We didn't mosh, we dug the Boss,
We wore white
hats, we got fat
We boogied down hard
To Saturday Night Fever
We
listened to the Hurricane
And became Bob Dylan believers
Someone had
a bong
And they named it Buddy
We got baked and were liable
To read
from the Bible
We didn't talk loud in the library
She was a dancer,
She was an actress
She always got the part,
She always wore a green dress
We danced upon the cement,
Muses came and went
I saw some of them at
Targy's
But Mary was always my star BLUES ON THE AVENUES Walking
the Ave up and down
All around toward the underground
On University Avenue
Far from the Bothell slew
Don't remember partying much
In Mercer
Island or Bellevue
Sometimes we had the blues
But we knew our avenues
Did the Queen Anne Avenue crawl
There were coffee shops in myriad
I was convinced, at age 16,
That it was my most prolific period
Bob Dylan,
in 1962,
Was only 5 years older than mev He's a Gemini
We both studied
mythology
We'd read Grimm's fairytales
And the grim would get grimmer
DROPPING BOMBS IN THE HOUSE I remember when someone stole my journal
Those incredible confessions, felt like Laura Palmer Dance parties all
night, pass out on the floor
Someone got punched out and he broke my dresser
I said, "No dropping bombs in my house"
Somebody spilled some ice cream
on the couch We smoked too much and drank too much
We all meant so much
to each other As time went on, it was difficult to see
Bruce Springsteen
wrote about busted blue collar dreams I wrote odes about Gatsby's crushing
lossesv At 16 I thought I was equipped for the masterpiece Sandy didn't have
direction so she moved to Boulder
I had a sense that I didn't want to get
older I never wanted to have to open my own doors
I held fast to the belief
that life ended at 24 COME ON IN, CALIFORNIA I think I partied
hard with some members of the Eastside glitterati
I heard their parents came
from Cali so we welcomed them to the city
They didn't know much about me and
my Queen Anne dreams, you see? Come on in, California So, say goodbye
to that, Joe, because it's tough keeping score
Growing up on these shores
you don't like the look of them anymore
You didn't grow up poor, but I'm sure
you'll be poor no more Come on in, California Money was coming in and
it seemed that our intentions were sinister
We went on operation get-some
and we became pimp ministers
I went to her house and I slid down the banister
Come on in, California These dramas came to affect you and me, so we damned
our pedigree
But I felt so strongly that we were both part of a human family
Still we pondered our position in the pimp ministry Come on in, California
CONVERSATIONS IN THE CLUBS I saw a friend in Boise
He'd done
a lot of things He'd been a model citizen
He'd been to Germany He'd
been to Italy
He gambles all he can I said what about tomorrow?
He
said there's no such thing I went to see the Dalai Lama
And he told me
to skip the drama He'll keep on traveling for what it's worth
He travel
to the far ends of the earth Doesn't feel the need to name the pearl
Or
to commit to one view of the world A SONG ABOUT SEATTLE They say,
you should write something universal
Something from the proper radio format
We played with a woman who wrote a couple # 1 singles
She sure knew how to
compose a jingle But I'm single and ready to mingle and prattle
And I
think I'll write a song about Seattle
The way sometimes we feel herded like
cattle
We've got strip malls and McDonalds, but we've got DJ battles It
makes me think of Springsteen and Born To Run
Life here was never desperate
enough to create tales so homespun
Though lots of folks are creative, always
creative and fun
We all wake up and see the same sun ROCK IN SEATTLE
I think of Mamas and The Crocodile Café
Dicks and the Uptown Theater
Played the Showbox the other night
And we blew that room away I'm approaching
every show as though it's the last
I'm giving everyone a backstage pass
They comp the meals, they give me the drink tickets
We make sure to kick some
ass HAIL, HAIL SEATTLE New York belongs to everyone,
Seattle
belongs to me
We've done our time in L.A.
And we can't penetrate the
scene
Oh, the open road of Walt Whitman has been seen
I don't understand
the word Americana; it's all Seattle to me So, I will stop in every restaurant
I will play in every club
I am on a fuckin' mission
Can you all give me
some love?
I'll do it like Springsteen did back in his day
Before the
80s came and swept his innocence all away From the boutiques of Fremont, to
the Denny Regrade
From the cliffs of Magnolia Hill, to the Ballard Promenade
Our towns are not all the same
This is the story of my home
And you greet
my words with silence
Just hear me out, then I'll be gone I'll be preaching
in the pub
You won't find me to be like a professor
I'll be wowing the
cocktail waitresses
They'll be the converted, the confessors
I won't apply
for a PHD
Nothing could seem sillier to me
In the dentists' office I will
read
On the stage, my heart will bleed So hail, Seattle
Kurt Cobain
did us proud
Hail, hail Chief Seattle
Ray Charles waged his battle
Out there in West Seattle
I think Quincy Jones is from Bremerton
The fight
he started is not done
Hail, Hail rock n' roll
Hail, Hail Seattle | 
