I watched Piñero last night, about the late Puerto Rican poet and playwright Miguel Piñero. Pretty good movie (at the very least it showcased the beautiful Benjamin Bratt); definitely had some good poetry readings. It's constructed in a very chaotic manner, perhaps reflecting the chaotic life of the man, a successful artist while at the same time a petty criminal and heroin addict. This morning I was scanning my bookshelves for a new novel to read on the train (I just finished Please Kill Me, an excellent oral history of punk rock, focusing on its roots in the New York underground from 1967 to 1980 ... more on that soon). My eyes came across Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels, which I've attempted before but never completed. Inspired by the stream-of-consciousness style of Piñero, I pulled it out and headed off to catch the T.

Once at the T stop at Harvard Ave., I pulled out the book to begin reading and out falls a photograph I had been using as a bookmark while previously reading the book. It's of me wearing a green army parka with a fur hood and my first Chelsea jersey, standing in front of my old apartment building on Howe St. in Oakland. I've got my army backpack on so I probably had just come back from Berkeley. All these memories come rushing back, of putting on the jersey to meet up with Michael to go watch football at a pub, of going to classes at Berkeley wearing that backpack, of setting up my first Playstation in that apartment. Even the Adidas shoes I was wearing got me remembering things.

Then on the train, someone near me was wearing the same aftershave that Veronica's stepdad wears, and I started thinking about spending a week with Veronica's family in Iowa after I passed my qualifying exam ... lazy days concluded by Alan and I polishing off a few bottles of wine over dinner.

i've never felt so good, i've never felt so strong
nothing can stop us now