CELEBRITIES I'VE SEEN OFF STAGE

was first published by the editors of

LODESTAR QUARTERLY

this poem also appears in my book

DEVIANT PROPULSION

(Soft Skull Press, 2006)

please enjoy, CAConrad

Goober (what's his name?)

from The Gomer Pyle Show

on airplane to Chicago

annoyed I didn't know

who he was but I was

only eleven his TV

show before

my time

Pope John Paul II

outside St. Peter &

Paul's cathedral

our Catholic

neighbor convinced

my mother it would

be educational for

the kids to see him

but truth was

she just wanted

a ride

Pete Rose signing

autographs at the 1980

World Series in Vet Stadium

I was wishing he was my father

then I saw Tug McGraw

and wished he was

instead

Neil Diamond on Atlantic City boardwalk in blue western shirt smiling at the excitable young girls

Debbie Harry entering the Kennel Club I got high in an alley with my friends not old enough to get inside we imagined dancing and laughing doing lines of coke with Debbie singing "Heart of Glass" the higher we got

Allen Ginsberg reading "Sunflower Sutra" at the Painted Bride I jerked Barry off in the back row and later watched Ginsberg waste his angles on the straight boys

John Gotti stepping out of a South Philadelphia restaurant someone opened his car door for him I imagined the restaurant workers wiping their brows and relaxing

Melissa Etheridge in the lesbian bar after a concert my friend Kim ran upstairs to tell everyone but couldn't find her again when they came downstairs Kim made me tell them she wasn't making it up then Melissa walked out of the bathroom to a crowd of sighs

John Waters signing

autographs Pegalina asked

if she could bite his

neck he agreed with a

laugh which he soon

regretted with a scream

and asked us to leave

we walked into The

Rose Tattoo Pegalina

announcing "I HAVE TASTED

THE FLESH OF GENIUS!"

Tina Turner on Walnut Street her sweat evaporating and one day coming down again as rain turning into drinking water becoming us becoming her becoming us

Gregory Corso pacing back and

forth in the North Star Bar

office ranting at me,

Janet, Jim and Dee

about how we

only wanted

to open for

him so we could

ride his famous

coattails which

was crazy because

we were invited to

open for him he calmed

down later and we

all had

a great

night

Michael Moore at a book signing
MOORE: (while signing my book) Where can I get a good cheese steak?
ME: I'm a vegetarian
MOORE: Oh, well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me! NEXT! (to woman behind me) Where can I get a good cheese steak?
WOMAN: I'm also a vegetarian
MOORE: Why are ALL my fans vegetarians!?
ME: We have problems with torture and murder for pleasure

Timothy Leary at Starwood having lunch with the Reverend Velveteen Sly a couple of naked pagans asked if they could get their pictures taken on his lap he twitched his gray brow with a big smile happy to oblige

Annie Sprinkle was dating my friend Marie they came over for a tarot reading we spent most of the time talking about herbs to cure AIDS I don't remember if the tarot answered anyone that night

Henry Winkler on Benjamin Franklin Parkway annoyed me to think of jerking off as a kid "Oh Fonzie, cum on my FACE! SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT!" what was my deal back then?

The Frugal Gourmet shooting a segment of his cooking show in the Reading Terminal Market telling someone what a moron his cameraman was then oooing and aaahing over the pastries for the camera moments later

Pavarotti signing autographs for the crowd outside the Academy of Music seeing a plate of pasta with olive oil and broccoli rabe through the wall of the restaurant across the street with his superhero x-ray opera eyes

Howard Stern in Rittenhouse Square talking about "snapping gyro" with Jessica Hahn and Sam Kinnison after a show in the park heckling Philadelphia disc jockey John DiBella

Danbert Nobacon

of Chumbawamba

married my friend

Kathy's daughter

the three of them

came over for a

tarot reading

Danbert sat

on the couch

not saying much

while Kathy and

Laura had a good

time laughing

with me on the

floor reading

the cards

Courtney Love and

Billy Corrigan at J.C. Dobbs

while I was on stage reading

poems with Regie Cabico for the

Lollapalooza show everyone

lathered themselves in

Courtney's drunken blond

drama later she crossed

the street to Zipperhead

and set fire to T-shirts

with Kurt's death

certificate

on them

Patti Smith outside the Trocadero

a year later on South Street

years later in HMV Records

when she yelled at my

friend Jeffery for

taking her

picture

Buffy Sainte-Marie being interviewed by PBS in museum making bullshit statements to the camera about how special and different artists are from "other people" when I told her my mother was a big fan she got annoyed because she's really caught in the same struggles as "other people" about aging

Quentin Crisp at a book signing
REPORTER: Quentin, how do you feel about chromosome testing to determine if a fetus is predisposed to being gay or lesbian to consider aborting the pregnancy?
CRISP: Sounds fine with me, my life has been miserable, I wouldn't wish it on anyone

I served Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Nancy Reagan parmesan bread sticks at the Presidential Summit when I worked for Metropolitan Bakery their speeches on Welfare Reform infuriated me and the live gospel music made me want to shove a bread-stick up the ass of Christ to stop the music from celebrating the destruction of poor Americans and when skeletal Nancy creaked by I wanted to shout "MY FEET ARE SORE AND I CAN'T AFFORD TO GET SICK OR DIE YOU FUCKING BITCH!"

Laurie Anderson on Broad Street talking to a very sexy nerd with mustache very serious conversation serious and sexy seriously sexy

I served Oprah Winfrey a skinny mocha cappuccino and a low fat fruit bar when I worked at the Barnes & Noble cafe my coworker Paul cried when he told her how her show had saved his life and when she gave him a hug he wouldn't let go which was beautifully unnerving Oprah patting his back "Okay now...okay...okay...okay now"

Angela Davis at a book signing where a drag queen asked her why she had stayed in the closet so long I don't remember her answer the question much more interesting

Chastity Bono angry at my boss for running out of her book with C-SPAN and local news stations in the audience she told everyone to buy the book at Borders

Bruce Willis eating a sandwich on Pine Street taking a break from shooting The Sixth Sense

George and Barbara Bush campaigning for their son at the Republican Convention waving from the steps of the Union League I joined PETA oinking at them till George yelled something and a line of cops shoved us curbside

George W. Bush wincing and waving what's with the wincing? do I really care? no, just wondering if hair on his balls is also salt and pepper

SEXY Ralph Nader shaking hands during the 2000 presidential election I swear I could actually taste the man through the grip of his hand!

Andrew Tobias signing copies of his books My Vast Fortune and The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up
WOMAN: (whispers to me) He's so brave coming out of the closet
ME: BRAVE!? It's 2001! While he was busy writing about his gay life under a pseudonym and making millions on the stock market from the other side of a closet door others were getting their heads bashed in fighting to make it safe for his rich white ass to FINALLY come out of the dark!

I sold a copy of Gay & Lesbian Philadelphia to John Waters
WATERS: Is there a biography of Uncle Ed, you know, that crazy Philadelphia guy who bought young men's dirty socks and shitty underwear?
ME: No, there isn't
WATERS: Oh, what a shame, it's the ONLY biography I want to read!

SCRUMPTIOUS nerd Jeff Goldblum walking thru Philip Guston show with beautiful blond she knows the taste of his cum lucky lucky lucky her!

Newt Gingrich in town for the World Affairs Council and he stops by the bookstore to sign his novel Grant Comes East
CUSTOMER: I didn’t know Washington types wrote novels
ME: Washington hasn't been interested in nonfiction since the 1970s

Sold smiley Cameron Diaz a copy of Philosophy for Dummies and I thought to myself "THIS is going in my goddamned poem!"

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