today is jeanine’s birthday!

shes 24

born in the valley to a half black woman and an italian doctor (cheif of staff if you wanna be specific), jeanine bounced around various highfalutin private schools and somehow made her way to uc santa barbara.

destiny would greet her when she walked into the Daily Nexus. long haired and shy, jeanine filed stories for the County desk writing about downtown santa barbara politics, crime, and designer drugs. it wasnt until she began her series on the Isla Vista elementary school that your hero noticed her and approached her and asked her out for a date. there are no such things as dates in IV, however, just random hookups, but our birthday girl was a veeeergin at the time so the two drove down to the movie theatre and took in a film.

it was a horrible date that could have ended in all of our futures ending up quite differently. but there was something special about jeanine and your boy saw it, he didnt know what it was but it was oh so faintly twinkling behind all of that hair. there was a light in her dark brown eyes. there was a heart beating beneath all of those clothes. so he asked her out for another date, this time the neverending story part two.

horrible movie, horrible date. so they decided to be “just friends”.

one rainy afternoon, quite like today, jeanine was invited over to give the author “guitar lessons”. once the small talk dissipated and the guitars were whipped out jeanines special purpose was spotted. she could sing! and man could she play that guitar. everything that she had been repressing and holding back and concealing and selfishing was out in the open.

and being a college boy all your hero wanted to do with it all was get in there and investigate it. so a fourth date was demanded. intoxicants were rushed into her bloodstream. fluids were exchanged. lives were changed and out came eight underweight babies. the end. not really. jeanine and tony lived together for two years in isla vista. they shared two iguanas. found themselves in three apartments. were shunned by her family. and were so in love that nothing could separate them.

eventually it became obvious that tony was boring and prague was not and jeanine jetted off to the land of fifty cent beers and fifty dollar rents and sad poetry followed including this one, one of the worlds favorites called “oj and courtney and everyone but you”:

i writer everyday
and ask her to come back
but i do not send em
i think about younger girls
or bigger girls or wilder
girls arent what im lookin for now
but you know that
and its not super, man, thinking about all of whatever happened
that added up to this
which is me alone at 2am
suckin on a pen
thinking of how i write and write and nothings

you drive through the desert
and you see two things
oilrigs pumping and windmills spinning
motion and no movement
spirit, no action.
whirling and whirling
typing and hoping and praying
and thinking
im gonna die without her
thinking im so stupid to even be thinking

everyone gets over theirs
i got over mines
whats so damn perfect about this little flatchest grrl
with her perfect hair and lips
we’d kiss and cry and lie all night
slept in so many rooms
all over california mexico and foreign lands like
gretna and maui
whats the good lord got saved for me
do bums in the street with heaps of dirty clothes used as sheets
snoozing away in a doorway think about what the lords gonna bring em
and who am i to ask when theyve got real dreams
i just want my little girl.
clouds pass by overhead silent in the nightsky
theyre going to where clouds die
and theyve seen her why dont they tell me hows it really.
the rain, it rains, and it pours on a little pink girls bike
half falling down no kickstand
im damned why wont he say it
in a holding cell not hell but close someone in the cloud has a rope
but theyre scared id use it the cheater way and youd see dangling converses
in the morning with milk but i got better plans dear fans
i just want my little girl.
and they bowl as the rain pours tears from sobbing saints twentyfour hours it flashes
semis blow past spray mud on the corn and i wish sometimes i wasnt born
you dont need me what role am i bukowski kicks the crap outta this guy
dont bang good anymore and i cant hit a curve
i teach fools how to sell im the king of the nerds
so whys he got me breathing still aint i paid all my bills
maybe thats it.
sh*t.
i still want my little girl.

happy birthday sweet jeanine. very glad we’re not only good friends, but great friends and i love you very much. in fact if you live in LA and want to celebrate jeanines bday, theres a party at my house tonight, just email me for directions.