A friend of mine sent me some of his spoken word material. There's an Ennio Morricone-like music track superimposed, done by Steven Fisk on this one, entitled "No No Man". The recording was done posthumously, Bernstein being a tortured soul, killed himself rather gruesomely at the ripe old age of 40. The first time I heard this, my reaction was...where do I find more of his material?? It is on a CD entitled "Prison". And, it's apparently the only recording he did. He has a number of books out, however. One look at this guy's punim and my reaction was...he looks as disturbed as he sounds. Anybody else here familiar with SJB? Curious. I've got a hunch Messy is well acquainted with him......
by Steven Jesse Bernstein
Midnight, and the sunglasses twirl. My injuries, a death plant warped in Hollywood rockery of juice cans and hypodermic needles. You're so cool, baby, you don't know what you need. If the jaundice comes up, get out of the traffic. A girl with an ass that hurts me all over again, I know that girl's ass hurts glass and pebbles crunching under her shoes. The movie goes on and the men go inside, hiding their bottles. These men look confused like fish getting clubbed on the pier. What they see in there is better than me. Pick a needle out from the burnt matches and test it, blow through it, make a little bubble - there is a wazzoo up the strip. Put it in with the dust and the pocket of cigarettes, the key, the muffled bottom of the storm. Pull down my eyelids with my fingernails in a window not made to look in or out of, or to be used as a mirror though it works good as a mirror. There is a yellow line. It is jaundice. It is not a yellow line. It is not jaundice, no. The ass that makes me hurt, made to make me hurt, turns, showing breasts that make me hurt but a face like a butcherboard. Eyes smeared on, worn out red elastic mouth, the mouth of a sock waiting to be used. It hurts. Little tender thing in the dark under the shorts, leaky pelvis all over the sheets. Yo, baby, got a No No? No, No No. Sick animal glare in the skin of the pavement, oh I do want to go down right here where they threw the mop head, the paper towels, and rubbers, got a No No whistle is all. You can't make music with that. Movie inside is big as the wall of a building, so bright it'd make you throw up but they watch it, the men, and they eat and they drink and they eat and they drink. Actually, it's not just the two of us, her and me. There are cops and me and her and the good for nothing windows and brown suits and grey suits and blue suits, cars that stop and ones that go. There are palm trees and people leaning on the palm trees, scratching, reading, and looking at the trash which is empty, believe me, from being looked at. And gargoyles of human beings hung on the ugly architecture of wobbling lurching bodies coming down fast like dying empires, after the sun is already dead in their eyes. Rooms full of spooks drunk on dish soap spiked with whatever was left on the tables when the bar closed. An animal over there with spotted pants dreams googleplex with the chopped up palm and broken wall and it's just lost, oh my God. Moving like a range of dusty mountains, dead with nothing to hold it down, moved by earthquake or rain that swallows the stars and moon. Get out of the way, off the curb, he pukes on the garden and slams sideways into the stucco. What are the cops waiting for here, lined up in their cars staring at their clip boards and microphones. "We got some people scratching themselves, a man looking at his eyeballs up under his shades, and a woman with a poochy ass who keeps turning around and around. Find a hurt place and don't ever let it heal. Get that fucker hanging on the wall and tear him loose, the stars are coming out. There is a TV set in a window, it says, 'The stars are coming out.'"
