It started out in the bedroom. For some, this is where a "good" date ends up, but in this case it's where the Disaster began. We'd just finished a tour of Ralph's house, him walking from room to room, me following along behind, oohing and ahhing over the new coffee maker, his giant Bjork poster, the wood paneling around the doors… Finally he stopped at a closed door. "My bedroom!" he exclaimed and threw the door open to expose an octagon shaped room with two large windows. I observed all the usual masculine clutter spread across the floor: abandoned beer cans, a crumpled pair of boxers, Adidas flip-flops…stray tree branches…HEY wait a minute here. There were branches tossed helter-skelter across the room as though a gust of wind had smashed through the window and carried in debris from the yard outside. However, I noted, the window panes were all still intact. Hmmnnn…

Ralph quickly explained. "Oh, I love the outdoors. Since I can't be out there—It's waaay too fucking cold, I just, like, bring as much of it in here as I can!!" Along with the tree branches, Nature boy had also collected various rocks, twigs and acorns from the Great Outdoors. They nestled in the fuzz of his dirty orange carpet, beside the Adidas flip-flops. He pointed out to me that he'd also pinned small, squares of black cloth up in each corner of the room, where the walls met the ceiling…"to provide unity, and create a circle for the energy to flow within." He said, "Walls are bad, they close out the earth."

Struggling to keep an open mind, I cleared away some of the rubble and sat down. Ralph fiddled with his stereo. He stuck in a Sublime CD and danced over to me, grunting like a drunken gorilla. By the third song we had a bet going. I was convinced I'd heard Ronald Reagan's name thrown into the lyrics with a bunch of rap jargon. I was sooo sure of myself I told Ralph I'd buy him a margarita downtown, if I was wrong. Well, Ralph zipped back a few frames and replayed that part of the song over. "He's saying 'Rap and Rhythm.' he insisted. And sure enough I heard these words repeat, with nothing about the president. I automatically deducted margarita money from my cash fund for the night and then moped earnestly for a full half-hour.

When I thought the night couldn't get any worse, suddenly, as if seized by one lone intellectual idea, Ralph pulled out a book.

"Ever heard of Charles Bukowski?" he asked.

When I said no, he opened the grimy paperback cover and began reading poetry in a scratchy voice, rough from smoking too many hand-rolled hippie cigarettes. I forgot all about my companion for about fifteen inspirational minutes and when it was all done, I begged for more. If you're ever knee deep in the middle of a shitty date, you've exhausted all topics and realize the two of you have nothing on God's Great Earth in common—read some of Bukowski's poetry. It'll almost make up for anything. *end of spontaneous book review....

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