WHERE IS YOUR SMOKING CHRISTIAN NOW?

RAISED BY WOMAN,
DESTROYED BY LETTUCE MEN
AND AN INVASION OF
UNFUNKY JUNKIES

I think we’re all asleep on a bus
Laughing at people who are not us
Following thoughts not connected to eyes
Promoting a form of dumb surprise

Line up now
Mellow, shredded cheese blends
Mixed with Mexican spices
A one of a kind recipe
Finally, in a convenient plastic bag

For freshness
Kings’ armies clashed
Countries overrun
Bombs invented
Bombs dropped

I don’t golf
For these very same reasons
I’m anxious to get out of the way
Somebody behind me might actually know how to golf

People like us
Need to abandonee the mainstream
The Greater Apes are demanding
They are allowed to play through

Let them be the very first
To taste this cheese that seems
To speak the truth
After you’ve given up every option

Perhaps even pick up my own bag

Before it’s back to Long Beach
To the oldest living Japanese-American man in America
Sure, he’s your father
But, you’re 46, single, and ready to die

You must give him his car back

After getting him a nice salad from Ralph’s
The elderly can easily forget human roughage requirements
I know
I’ve made a life long study of it
They do not eat enough roughage
It’s the fact, Jack

I am my own Pet Rock™
We were sold by the millions
But not remembered as babies
Ready to fight the next war

Now, we count on our roughage intake
To save the world from fanatical terrorism

And I am not one to argue
With an entire salad
Let alone one fresh carrot at a time
“They’ve got the guns, we’ve got the numbers”

We won
But, we completely forgot to take over

We count now on the Truly Menacing
To keep us together as a nation
Held captive by citizens who
Could ever identify itself on a map

We won
We just don’t remember what
We won
We just don’t remember what

MY WEEK, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

FOR THOSE OF YOU NICE ENOUGH to follow me daily in my search for my true, "biological Mother" I'm afraid I have no good news. The women I approach with what I took to be legal documents, seem to get more annoyed by my pursuit each day.

This particular woman would have rather sucked green lemons than have me as a son. If she weren't my mother, I would be forced to call her a racist.

I took several more pictures of her before she destroyed my camera and tripod. Those candid snapshots might be lost forever. Then again, I believe this was her intention all along.

She died of what the coroners listed as "shock" on her death certificate. One black and white photograph and a copy of her death certificate. These two things are pretty much all I have of her. I wanted to drive her body back to Fullerton with me, but nobody supported my idea and she was given a proper burial in her own native Virginia.

Yes, I had to leave her there. But she lives on in my children and in my imagination. I believe her last few restraining orders, requiring me to always remain 300 yards away from her at all times, was just her way of saying, “You’re too white to be from this part of LA and you’re too stupid to be any relation to me!”

I’m only guessing this because she told me so often in those exact words. But I have come close to figuring out who my biological Father is through all this pain and mistrust. Although his family has demanded an additional blood test to prove my claim, my biological father is none other than the late great star of the Texaco Star Theater, a comedy-variety show (radio, 1940-48; television, 1948-56), remembered best as the show that made a household name of "Mr. Television"-My biological father, Milton Berle.

If you think it’s hard to keep up with all of this, imagine how I feel.

NOW PLAYING QUIETLY AT SMOKINGCHRISTIAN.COM

Would it be more fun to be an obvious genius like Joni Mitchell? I wouldn’t be asking the question if I already knew the answer. The question is not meant to be rhetorical. In fact, just like a little schoolgirl, I bought this album in college. From then on I was her fan. Buying ever album from before and after. Then buying them all again on CD.

She wrote these songs in her head. In other words, they popped in unannounced and yet impossible to turn away. “She just showed up with all these songs!” is what her first musical accomplices swear to this day.

“Blue” came out in 1971 and I’m sure many suspected I only blasted it out of the stereo in my car or dorm room to fool girls into thinking I was “sensitive.” While that would be reason enough, it was not the reason I listened to Joni Mitchell as much as I did Jim Morrison, John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix. And with the exact same intensity. I was spellbound with what was coming out of their minds and the music that came right along with it.

The music could stand alone. But never the words. They were great but hardly anybody read poetry then. Very few ever have. You really need some music behind every verse.

Only Joni Mitchell is still alive. I heard an interview with her a couple of years ago on NPR. Naturally and without malice, the interviewer asked her what she would feel like if she died from her cigarette smoking. Equally polite and pleasant, Joni told a little story about artists who live long lives despite the fact they smoke. She concluded by saying, “It will have been a pretty good run, don’t you think?”

Now, just in time for the holidays, I’d like to read you a snippet from the song “River” from the album now playing.

“It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on.”

THIS IS HOW I LOOK TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS

I can’t decide which is more fun, writing smokingchristian.com or playing chicken with an oncoming train? Many times I think, at least the train is on a track to somewhere.

I LET STEAM OFF ON THE DEAD BRAIN SOCIETY

I’M AS ANGRY AS THE EARTH, SPRAYING OUT OF ITS HEAD

I had the luxury of working with a great creative director named Steve Beaumont here in California. Our combination of his good looks and my phenomenal originality produced several rooms full of advertising to the hundreds of millions. After about five years of working with him, he told me I’d been angry since he’d known me.

In noting this, I remembered how I could not argue with him or anybody even today. My mind goes off and people think I’m mad even when I’m not. I am seen as “Old Faithful.”

People seem to stand very far away and just watch the steam and water pour upside down. Like a waterfall going the wrong way.

I HOPE SOMEBODY IS WRITING THIS STUFF DOWN

“Suicide Boy & Yap Yap”

One was a perfectly fine marble
The other one just happened to be green
They both suffered from hereditary cheapness
Only kids in the First Grade still played with them

I started to place tremendous value again on these marbles
As the world went to the very back of my mind
Since almost everybody went insane with fear
Realizing they were completely paranoid and crying off key

That’s the time for “Suicide Boy & Yap Yap”
An original animated farce by the Smoking Christian
One lives on the very edge of no meaning
Until he goes and rescues a dog that has already been etherized

The two bark and play together
Like two marbles in a sink
Plants come in to share the joy and moisture
Suicide Boy decides to drink

I WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE BORN

What could a poor boy do but die in a World War?
The survivors of this global clash
Felt either lucky or gifted
I come from the lucky side