For Cooper on her 22nd

You have to pretend that this is a podcast. It was going to be one. Imagination is good for the soul. Poetry is not something I excel in.

Cooper who comes from too many places.
Cooper has too many names to list,
none being Alice.
That wasn’t unexpected, no non-
masochistic parents would
risk so much teasing.
And really, the Empress of Wonderlandornot
has way more suitable names.

Cooper won’t party like its
1999 or 1985 even, which is a
shame.

1985, year that everything began
to change.

People would ask if they needed to
join an “A” group. The wisdom was if
they had to ask yes they belonged in AA,NA,OA

I asked. They all laughed.

Other people joined “A” groups to meet people.

It was the year before AIDS became an acceptable
cause.

A year terrorism kicked its
head.
A plane was hijacked in Greece, I think
I was coming home from Britain, stopped in
London for night. Turned on the telly, an
Air India Jet was bombed.
No survivors.

My Air India jet sat on the
runway for thirteen hours after
a bomb threat.
Thirteen hours of isolation and at
frigging Kennedy, the customs agent
made me prance to get through. Hell,
I would have given him my first born just
to get home. No, so not me but…

In October a boat was hijacked. My parents
celebrating a significant birthday, my mother’s,
asked me to
navigate their way from Munich to
Rome. Damn did they need me

We stayed at a hotel across from
Parliament and watched the collapse of the 41st government
since WW2–something like that.

My idiot, though adorable father wanted a certain room only,
so my parents very especially my
father were
taken for terrorists.
Yes, my father the brilliant though retarded CPA loved to
tell that story. Where
do you think I
get it?

The plane going home contained Leon Klinghoffer,
the hijacking victims body. It was
very late. We were whisked through
Customs as Koch kept the Klinghoffer family
the keys to the
city, or something
I don’t know, I was in a
f–king other part of
the airport, just a
weary
traveler.

Wasn’t my best
year for flying yet…I love
airplanes, and have never suffered
fear of
flying, though more things
like that kept
happening.
The Dawg thinks I
might run out of luck.

Oh I made this all about me.

Changes were coming
Good Housekeeping had a commercial on rock stations
heralding a
return to traditional values

But MTV held sway.

Live Aid happened on July 13
It was the concert of the century

Oh yeah, there had been Woodstock
but some of us
refused to go on the
grounds we didn’t want to sleep on the
ground. I was offered a
bogus nurse’s uniform and a ride in a
helicopter, but uh, I was scared of them.

Live Aid, you could see in a big screen in a
club. I had just been to Wembley to see
Eric, of course. I think maybe with Elton.
That might have been 92. But definitely Eric.

It was 90 something that day.

Men were selling Christmas ornaments on the subway.
A male stripper tried to entice Lucia and I into using his
services.

The people in the club seemed normal
and everybody shared
joints.

Memorial Day, I remember it well
The Blenderbusters went to Jones Beach,
and rented four umbrellas to try to keep
the wind and the cold away.

It began to pour, we went to the car,
smoked some joints, and drove blindly
in the car.
For some reason, I was going through
a Rod Stewart phase and forced us to
play Maggie May way too many times.

We laughed and went for lobster.

We didn’t know the world was about to be
enriched, because Cooper of the altruistic orgasm
was about to be
born.

But Cooper just once you have to party like its 1985, another
time 1977, 1999 so almost millenium.

1985 was truly one
of the last great party
as if it doesn’t
matter, years.

The year of your birth
was quite
memorable, and I
left most out.