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SINISTER_TIME

                                             September 22, 2016

Bucky Sinister's book
"Time Bomb Snooze Alarm" (2012)

At first I was a bit disappointed with
this book... Bucky Sinister is a guy who
crawled back from the edge and kicked the
booze and drugs-- as he points out in the
introduction, he set out to be a poet, but
these days is actually best known as an          THOUGHT_ACTION_DISCONNECT
author of self-help books--

But in the first few pieces in this book it
seemed like he didn't have anything to write
about except his old life.  There's a bunch of
references to the old days in San Francisco
that I appreciated, but he was looking to me        He talks about a guy who
like a guy who'd made it out of the abyss but       used to be a speed
now didn't have anything to talk about, except      dealer in the basement
for romanticizing the darkness.                     of the Chameleon Club
                                                    on Valencia Street.

As I continued on through the book I found          I didn't even know the
that my first impression was wrong-- I think        Chameleon *had* a basement.
he was leading off with those kinds of pieces
to set the stage, to make it clear what kind
of life he came out of.

There are later pieces that are actually really
good: he's become a straight with a job and a
mortgage... but he's always aware that he's not
exactly as straight as the straights around him.


     In "Trust is a Luxury", talking about _Fight Club_:

       "I said, *how the hell would you find
       that many guys who had never been in a fight before?*
       The room was quiet."

     This poem is about visiting San Quentin to
     run a poetry workshop:

       "The convicts know what it's like
       to hurt someone and feel bad about it,
       that losing a fight heals,
       but winning one can haunt you."



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