Verse by Charles Bukowski, music by Johnny Cash

Interview with a neocon who referred to my home as "that little penitentiary you built for yourself."

We stood in a crowded corridor of a state office building in Ostentatious, capital of The People's Republic of Travis County, where millionaires in chartered "Buses by Bill" had come to protest the erection of power lines from west Texas to Houston carrying wind-generated electicity made by higher-powered air on the prairies.

I could only stare at his blue-tinted pompadour, his white patent leather Guccis, my spiral bound skinny notebook safely tucked away in my inside lapel pocket as we sweated in the fetid atmoshere caused by a Public Utility Commissioner's decision to cut the air conditioning until the wildly indignant PEOPLE WITH MONEY GOT BACK ON THE BUS, GUS, for the long ride home in defeat, disappointment, lamenting the loss of the pristine view of the flatiron mesas and cedar scrub around their many mansions.

It all reminded me of my trips through the desert with John Doe from Chicago, drunk in the valley of death, en route from the tar pits to the neon casinos - and all points in between.