Tilt
By Catfish McDaris


On the lam from a marijuana beef, the state north seemed more favorable to my predicament and behavior. Radical. Outrageous. Entirely without redemption or qualm.

The old Argonaut Hotel in Denver sat empty, semi-condemned across from Argonaut Liquor on Colfax Avenue. Every wino, bum, hippie, hobo, hooker, and hustler scored booze there.

Promising the landlord to fix up his building, we started the first in-town commune. As one of the founding members and most lucrative pussy getting smokable drug dealer, it’s appropriate that I relate the following events surrounding my inhabitation of the above mentioned den of inequity and the catastrophic calamity.

I would ask you to let me remain in the shadows, as the statutes of limitations have expired on most of my supposedly criminal acts. Especially since many of our past politicians have smoked dope. So I’m not considered such an outlaw anymore.

There were many drugs used there. Orange sunshine, blue cheer, purple microdot, blotter, chocolate mescaline, magic mushrooms, and peyote: all doorways to madness gladness sadness. Skeletons dancing from closets, Timothy Leary’s ghost, Jerry Garcia grateful and dead. Save the ladybug. Talk to plants. Pet rocks. Free love. Jail hate. Blow jobs. Tuna fish. Smoke morning glory. Climb trees. Fuck pigs. Save green stamps.

Life/Death. Papa’s little squirt. Yo mama’s titty. Uncle Sam’s penis. Worm food. In that order.

California falls into the Pacific. Hollywood is Atlantis. Calling Aquaman. Saguaros surfing with Joshua trees. Arizona beaches. The world is a small turd circling a ball of fire. Lucifer is drinking Mad Dog and playing God’s pinball machine.


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Catfish McDaris has been active in the small press world for 20 years. He lived in a cave at a nudist colony and in a Chevy in Denver an entire winter. His biggest seller is Prying: with Jack Micheline & Charles Bukowski. His newest chapbook will be Eating Raw Jackrabbit & Snorting Black Cocaine.