Last Days of Joaquin Murrieta

"California's gonna die," she said. "And I'm pretty sad about it."

If you cut someone's arms off, one then the other, they will eventually bleed to death. Even if it takes a good long while, it happens. While it's ignorant to think otherwise, it's convenient as fuck. So people did that awhile. People moved into and around this place. Other people, a good slimy handful, made a killing. And made some money. Lives with breaths and blood and sacred places under a distant audience of fading stars were sold out and sold off like sickly cattle. An oblivious execution trip. Keys to the cages were thrown into the ocean. And the rich hid while the poor starved. It had happened before but not in this place, in this way. The real culprits got out clean. And they left the TV on and the engine running.
Their racket went on until the well ran dry and me and my kind are waiting around what was home, shells of cities in deserts and forests shaking heads and fists, saying, screaming, pointless questions. Why now and what for, etc.

California, she's not alone. In fact, it's not even that bad. It's just the enormity and symbolic importance of such a state of mind finally succoming to the strangulation is sad and it leaves my head spinning sometimes. I see the faces and hear the voices and it makes me want to take up arms, and without ideology or prejudice go down to the old factory where the scabs came in and blow them all away. 6112 Crosby Ave. Oakland, California. I can see you, you can see me. That's all technology has done.


But I'm just sitting down with you on a makeshift porch and we're discussing the weather, the strange and ruthless storm about to hit. Otherwise the sun usually shines. California like a motherfucker. Sometimes I can hide out and really lose it. And these times are becoming the only times I can revel in or hang with. A blanket on the grass. There's a baseball game somewhere. Dominoes in the park. A wanderer has reached the summit of a great and unnamed peak. Some longhairs have infiltrated a localized point break on the coast and will kill the rich fucks who think they know something about territory. A lowered Cutlass cruises for the last time, can't believe they could outlaw such a thing. Fresh tortillas all the time. A joint of native herb ignites. A soccer ball on the sand. Shitspeakers on a jambox. War, 2pac, Black Flag and The Beach Boys. The wind shuffles the past around softly. The sun smiles. California comes out and shines. The scent and the sight and the sound. I can dig it.
But it's too late to dig. Too goddamn late for anything.