This numerology thing is cool, but thematically unrelated, but I lead with it anyway. If you add the first twenty even numbers, starting with two and ending with forty, the sum of those twenty numbers equals four hundred and twenty. Go ahead. Try it. Or not. Whatever.If the Waldos knew that sparking up after school would have inspired an annual world-wide celebration of smoking weed at 4:20, which coincidentally occurs on...

“Excuse me. Is the bar still open?” I look up from cleaning to see an older male with an overly patched burlap messenger bag that has seen better days. I motion for the man to sit down at a table that doesn’t have its chairs upturned. “The bar is closed for the night, but I can get you something. What would you like?” I asked. “A dirty martini,” he replied. “Extra gritty, double olives?” “It’s the only way I roll.” As I m...

Four hundred and twenty potatoes. A client asked me to take a picture of that on my Exacta 66 camera. I contemplated as I sipped my dirty martini. I do get a lot of absurd requests, but this takes the cake. Speaking of cake, let’s get baked. I forgot what I was going to say now. Whatever, just saying...  

Sipping dirty martinisWatching girls in bikinisAnd strumming on my Les PaulAlbert King ambles throughRiffs ‘I’ll Play the Blues for You’Man, I really got it allCHORUSIt’s a dream vacationNo place I’d rather beYeah, a dream vacationNot sure where I’m atBut it suits meChecking out picsFrom my Exakta 66Can’t believe what I seeDon’t remember all thoseSometimes, that’s how it goesA penguin, potato and a beeCHORUSIt’s a dream v...

I lit the J between my lips and sucked its smoke deep into my fifty-year-old lungs. I held my breath and let it coat me inside. I sucked in more air to expand them further; to expose more tissue to the smoke. The deep recesses expand and then extract what they can before I blow the cleansed smoke out my nose. I never let my weed simply leave my mouth. No sense letting good shit escape into the air. I didn’t know the chick...

Dirty Martini 420 Competition • No entry fee• All entries must be new, original work• One entry per person• Limit 420 words• Category must be Micro Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry or Songs• Tags must include the word 'whatever'• Submission must include the number 420 in some form (time, date, distance, weight, temperature, length, or whatever) AND one item from EACH of the following lists:1. Exakta 66 camera, Gibson Les Pa...

There is no Interstate called Four Twenty,No one can tell me how to go there, now.No entry ramps, no exits one might see,But, still, I dream I'll get there, anyhow. The neon sign still glows so bright, my friend,The penguins manning toll gates ask two bits,Then lifting up the cross bar by its endThey welcome in the artists and misfits. At every mileage marker on the way,Twin speakers echo out some brilliant blues.As Alber...

The first time I meet you in a guitar store, strumming a Gibson Les Paul guitar I know you are the man I should be scared to get closer. My eyes behind my digital camera focus on your face while you are listening to the sound of the guitar. A penguin tattoo on your left tattoed hand stops playing, and you lift your head up to look in my direction as if you know that I am looking from behind the lens. Your eyes smile while...