August 4, 2017. A Tinker's Cuss – The Who in Atlantic City

Me and Kelly entered the USA at the end of May. I always get a second interview at Homeland Security. I've come to accept this. In the interview room, a beautiful Peruvian woman of about twenty-nine years of age was trying to explain to an officer why she had overstayed her visa by nine months last year. And how come she drove through the desert with a guy and stayed with him for six weeks in a dusty old motel room and didn't know his name or even the name of the desert. She said that the motel had a refrigerator, but that was about all she could remember. She called the Homeland Security officer "Senor."

I think I know where that motel is.

Me and Kelly attended the Berkeley Book Festival and gave out about 100 copies of the Phantom Billstickers Cafe Reader and talked to dozens of people about Kiwi poetry and music. People here love New Zealand. They often see it as an escape.

At the book festival, I met quite a few of the old 60s and 70s radicals who now own publishing houses. They have been bashing their heads against a merciless system for decades now and are mostly punch drunk from the effort.

Me and Kelly went to a franchise coffee house and there was a black guy of about 75 years of age sitting at a table with his girlfriend. They looked to be homeless, but they obviously cared deeply for each other. She wore a giant fur coat in temperatures approaching boiling point and carried herself with a modicum of decorum and the utmost of style.

The black guy was about three fourths blind. What this guy did was amazing. He sang a tune in a talking blues style and whilst doing this he drummed the table top with fingers bigger than drumsticks. The vocals were in perfect synchronicity with the drums and his knees went up and down. He had a huge smile on his face and his girlfriend's face lit up with pleasure. The entire song consisted of just the one line:

"That Lucy's a bad girl."

He repeated it over and over like he knew. She also smiled in a knowing way.

That song has stayed with me for two months now.

Every day more than 90 Americans die of overdoses of either Heroin, Fentanyl or prescription opioids. In New Jersey alone more than 2000 died of either Heroin or Fentanyl overdoses in 2016. This is more than those who died in car accidents, gun deaths and suicide combined.

When you're around this unhappy kind of environment for any period of time, I believe you have to keep doing things that make you feel happy and satisfied even if you have to force yourself to do it. Then, you have to consistently turn your back on The Bad of everyday life. You are at war.

So, keeping in mind my theory about the need for satisfaction, me and Kelly went to a concert by The Who in ramshackle Atlantic City. This was the key to satisfaction.

I enjoyed The Who to the full. I walked on air when Pete Townshend windmilled and Roger Daltrey threw that microphone cord around. The songs sounded as perfect as they always did. The band opened with what seemed to be a 45 second version of Can't Explain which was beautifully succinct and most precise.

But what I really liked the most was studying Zak Starkey on the drums. This kid born in 1965 was, to me, the real star. I thought about his mum, Maureen, and about how Zak was given his first drum kit by his Uncle Keith when he was eight years old. I thought about his dad and all this whilst watching a very confident drummer, never too much, never too little, and perfectly in tune and right on time.

At Peets, the old guy at the table banging out That Lucy's a bad girl was very sensuous. He obviously had a huge heart and here he was banging this song out for a very beautiful woman. I think they are still there and lucky them. They may be homeless, but they are so obviously in Love.

Whether you make a million dollars a year or whether you are on the very bones of your rectum, if you are in Love then you are a millionaire. This is True Dinks.