Mercygraft:

the jejune ramblings of an anxious, neurotic dude. he should've turned this bitch over to me long ago. well now.

Cromby needs to lose a little weight in more ways than one. his brain is overcrowded like a mediocre ballroom in a mediocre city. bad air, mediocre air, and it's all in his head. Cromby you could say has been on a bit of a losing streak. That's where I come in. Because, you know, I've always been there, but he aint always been so good about calling for my assistance.

Cromby won't tell you but I might about some of them bitter days in New York. The air in the fall there was gray and kind. He could never deny that the East River to him always felt like home and the hardscrabble pavement running all along the north Brooklyn waterfront like his skin. The day he sold his Marshall amp with 2 twin 12-inch speakers for less than half what he paid for it new. I think he got $350 back. It went for rent, beer, and food. That was a different New York, but to Cromby it'll always be a soulwrecker. He don't need to ever go back. He says if he writes about it he aint gonna call it New York. One component of what he wants to do is to change all the names to protect the guilty: himself

Cromby don't know if he's a hell of a lot of fun anymore. He has a laugh at the way he used to fetishize drinking and rambling poor and desperate through the streets and bars like that was credibility, like that was poetry. What it was was a waste of time and money. And yet he's tipping a beer right now. Beer is empty calories and so is the past. Cooler times is coming though and then too maybe he can draw himself out like wine.

Cromby's weak unsure of himself and scared he's wasting all his days, but I aint like that. I'll tell you fuckers straight: I come from the road, and for the road I'm bound.

Now listen: