Poetry Reading in Small Town America

Lo Berg quoted Hamlet at KRONOS Gallery in Staunton last night. That's only funny because this town is Shakespeare-nuts.

She's a good reader whose voice reminded me of an actress I once dumped for being totally fucking cra-cra.
I mean she was crazy, that one.

Lo Berg is a little young to really review. I can't expect her to face real criticism.
But I will say this:
She was very good at moments. She needs to stop rhyming so much. She should read experimental shit and start experimenting. Stop looking earnestly at the audience after every poem; it comes off fake or self-congratulatory. Lo Berg has a great reading voice, and she's pretty good at working an audience. She's a got a lot of confidence in her.

Does anyone like funeral poetry? I've seen famous poets start getting all teary-eyed and read a poem they'd written for a dead friend or relative. Save it for the funeral or just read it without introduction. Why do so many poets think they need to include a sob story in every reading they give?

Actually, I don't know how old Lo Berg is, and I just reminded myself that you open yourself to harshest criticism when you stand in front of a group of people and call yourself a poet. Beware poets: whenever you give yourself a title, you simply must live up to it.

The open mic. in the beginning was pretty fun. Fairly standard stuff, but there were a couple of gems in there, including a woman with a country accent reading famous poetry and a bear-bellied rocker-haired local reading his own work like what he thought a poet should sound like. That was fun.

And the KRONOS space was awesome. The peeps who run it are bent on changing the art world and the world in general.
Or something.
But I like their boldness for creating a scene in Staunton of all places. Staunton seems filled with such spirited individuals, people who don't want to leave but disdain the horrors of stagnation. I love people who will their dreams into reality, and when I come back to Staunton, which I certainly will, I hope KRONOS won't have given up on poetry readings. I also hope that they train their audience not to clap after every single poem. Clap at the beginning and end, and everyone will be much happier.

So frustrating, that clapping thing.

T3h B3$t3$t p13z of P0pz0r Pr0duzd?

If you felt fucked after Spider-Man 3, think about how the geeks feel right now about "The Watchmen."

I remember when "the Watchmen" came out and people were going ape shit about it. Well, kind of. I was just a kid, and we heard about "The Watchmen" but it looked like a cheap rip off of real superheroes, and we didn't get for a second what "The Watchmen" was supposed to be. Back then, a graphic novel was just a really long comic or an anthology bound in a single edition. Plus, when you're busy bowing to Batman, there's no time for something like "The Watchmen."

Now, if you want to boost your geek cred and impress your friends, you can pick up a copy of it at your local bookstore or have a more exciting time finding your local comic shop and watching the roll their eyes as they show the hundredth person where to find Alan Moore's masterpiece. The blurbs make it sound like the most amazing shit you'll ever read. I don't know if it really is "the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced," but it is a very unique experience as far as literature goes, and I think that's why professors at top-ranking universities are finally discovering it and sneaking it into the canon 23 years after its birth.

The guy who directed the atrocity that was "300" is directing the live-action film adaptation of the graphic novel that defined the term "graphic novel," and people who worship the book are already crying bloody murder. Magazines are calling it the hardest comic to adapt to film, and fanboys everywhere are making claims akin to those of Islam over those Danish comic strips a few years ago.

I have to say that it is a pretty amazing work of art. It achieves what many novelists try to accomplish with words alone, switching modes of narrative. If you read it, you'll know what I mean because it isn't 'just' a comic, and it isn't just a 'graphic novel'; it's a novel like any other except it happens to use some of the newest and most exciting tools to tell a story. And the story is compelling.

I'd recommend reading it before the movie comes out, though. If it sucks, you might end up like all those people who never had a chance to imagine what a Balrog looks like before Peter Jackson decided for them.

Coming O-U-T!

I am going to come out about two things.

This evening I spent around four hours at Oakland International Airport. I still like Oakland International Airport.
My flight was canceled, which meant that I was kind of screwed., but then it was miraculously reinstated. And when the plane came in, my salvation, it was out of order. It canceled again. I was not going to make it to D.C. when I thought I would.
Things like that happen when you travel. I travel a lot. The best thing to do is keep smiling. The people whose job it is to figure your shit out will appreciate it and do things for you that you will appreciate. And that is the first thing I am coming out about: I am not as much an ass hole as I pretend to be on the internet.
The internet is where I am hyper critical and where I vent my frustration with the world and where I condemn poets and poetry that I think is ruining my life.
The people at the airport yelled to one another how good a sport I was. They called me sweetheart and awesome and asked me how I kept smiling when everything sucked. I had many air travel problems this evening, and I ended up meeting everyone in the ground crew I could possibly meet, and we were somehow instant friends.

This is going to be a long post, so I won't talk about how that all happened, but I was convinced tonight more than ever that I am better than my bitterest enemies, and I feel good about it.

Then I went for a drink in Oakland.
There was a crying woman there. She said all men are ass holes and that she didn't believe in love. I told her it was easy to give up and say such things. It's easy to generalize, but smart people resist that temptation. I told her how I sometimes want to give up and how I often have negative feelings about people in general.

I often think that women hate men. No one ever tries to talk them out of it. Their mothers and fathers tell them how horrible men are, and men (like women) get frustrated and angry and make it look like we are all crazy/stupid/ass holes. But the opposite is true: people are good. If they weren't, there would be no money or government or telephones or radios or glass or electric lights; we would be living alone in caves without hope. And there's no reason to live without hope. Contrary to the evidence at hand, we usually think the worst of each other. If you think you're good, why would you thing that other people are bad?

And the second thing I am coming out about is hope. I believe in hope more than anything else, and I know it's cheese and lame to the jaded American businessman and woman scorned, and OK. That's fine. But they are wrong. There's always room for sincerity and truth and loyalty and honesty and courage. I know how much it hurts to be betrayed by the people you trust most. People betray me often because I give them too much of myself, but even after all the pain, I think I am still living the good life. It's not the easiest life, but it's a good one, and I like it. It's a building that isn't pretty from every angle, but it's strong and beautiful as a whole because it's built from scar tissue on a foundation of honesty.

I joined eHarmony to see if someone felt the same way I do about life and love. I have a hard time connecting with American women, but I'm not going to give up. I decided one night to play a more active role when it comes to finding love. My jury is still out on eHarmony, but I will tell you all how it goes. I am sure some of you are scoffing right now. But the small-town courtship rules and rituals of America are completely empty to me, and I think that they are bullshit. And I am adventurous and like to try new things, so why not?

I miss the way it feels to love someone, and I forget the way it feels to be beloved. I wonder all the time if anyone has ever loved me. I wrestle with the idea of being beloved and how and why it happens and feels. I want that. I hope for that. And even though I am quite bitter and have been hurt and betrayed by women, I still like them. Human beings are much more varied than puzzle pieces; I can't hate women just because I haven't found a romantic counterpart that doesn't crush out my breath and my ribs.

One more thing.
If we give up and generalize genders, we are only lowering ourselves so that we have a shorter distance to fall when we do, and we will. But if you raise your hopes, you fly above the clouds and look down. It's scarier up there because you're high, and you know it. But it's exhilarating because of that, too. I feel like Americans are afraid to take risks now. Not all days are cloudy, not all animals bite, and not all women are malicious and evil.

Come on Americans! Life is supposed to be a bit scary! Stand on the bridge with me and look over. Even if we fall, that feeling will be worth it. How soft is a pit bull's coat? How warm is a day after the marine layer burns away? When we blanket people with one sentiment, we're giving up, and wahat good does that do? It hurts, life, but we don't have to be babies about it. There's a lot to be endured in life, and there's a little to be enjoyed, but the trade is worth it.

It really is worth it.

At least I hope it is.
And if it isn't, well even a train wreck can be beautiful and compelling.

Tacks and Nails

Have you ever stepped on a nail? I have.
I have stepped on so many fucking nails, I cannot remember how many I have stepped on.
It's not that I haven't been careful, but my life has led me in the direction of many secret places with nails in them.
I am including screws and brads and carpet tacks and tapestry needles when I say "nails," which I know isn't fair, but that's the way it goes sometimes for inanimate objects made of sharpened metal.
When I worked at Disneyland, I stepped on a screw once that was attached to a piece of wood. I had to unscrew the wood like a big propeller from my foot while my shoe filled with blood.
I walked through a hallway filled with wood chips and got to the other side with a massive needle sticking out out of my foot's arch.
I once stepped on a nail without shoes on and the thing went so far into my foot that the point peeked out on the top.
That one really hurt.
Yesterday, I stepped on a carpet tack. It didn't go in very far, but it made a very long laceration lengthwise on the ball of my left foot. The tack was invisible where the carpet met the linoleum hall.
The thing that hurts most about getting sharp things in your foot, although the original puncture makes a better story to make your friends cringe, is the healing.

Yesterday I saw "A Winter's Tale" in Marin. They have a vegan option for their dinner package(!) and the production wasn't bad.

Every bar on College Avenue was filled with people, and I think that's because the university people are coming back to Berkeley and Oakland. Highly annoying.

I am walking with a limp now, and I have to go to Virginia tonight. I guess I will rent a car when I'm there. I didn't want to, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Pretty soon, I'll have to look for a new job. I don't want to look for a new job.

Dark Knight a Dark Review

Everyone's talking about this movie, and it's no surprise. After the death of Heath Ledger, everyone decided they would see "the Dark Knight" no matter what. I saw it in the IMAX over the weekend.
It was good to see it in the IMAX because there are more explosions and vertigo-inspiring city flyovers than any movie I've seen for a long time, and the IMAX makes the most out of bass-heavy bombs and helicopter acrobatics. I liked that about this installment of the Batman franchise, but unfortunately, it doesn't offer much more.
Sure Heath Ledger is amazing. But you can't help but think "poor fallen star," and even the best performance can be usurped by what a production lacks. And this production lacks a bit more than it should.

There's a lot of time spent with Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, and Christian Bale hanging out, giving it their all, but no one wants to hang out with the good guys and have tea, that's why episodes of Scooby-Doo cut away when Fred hatches a scheme to catch the villain. We don't care about what they say in those huddles. Christian Bale talks like a man who's gargled razor blades when he dons his cape and cowl, and that gets kind of annoying because we have to listen to so much of it. The kind of pow-wows Gordon and Batman hold only work in comic books, and even then, they are quite short. No one wants to hang out with Batman; we want to see him do things. Bruce Wayne is the talker, and everyone can't wait for him to put the suit back on.

Christopher Nolan wrote the screenplay with his brother, which is a mistake. They co-wrote "Memento," too, and the two films suffer the same problem: lack of dramatic climax. "Memento" is a very intense movie that grabs you, takes you for a crazy ride full of suspense, and then lets you off. It's like a roller-coaster. "The Dark Knight" is the same. Movies aren't roller-coasters; we like to be left out of the good guys' plans so we are surprised when they unfold, we enjoy rug-pulling and climactic shifts in narrative and denouements. Where "The Dark Knight" lacks these, it makes up for them in great performances and big explosions, but that can't fool everyone for long. Once you leave the theater, you've got to recuperate and come to, and once you do, you realize that it wasn't much to write home about.

Batman also gets TV's in eyes, which is incredibly lame. I am not sure what he hopes to see with those TV eyes, but I don't think he could fight with them on.

The last problem with the film is that there is nothing beautiful in it at all. Kim Basinger was enough for the first Tim Burton film, and Michelle Pfeifer was good for the second, but what have we got in this one? Maggie Gyllenhaal. Many people think she's cute, and sometimes she is, but in this flick she is haggard. They make her look like a D.A. who has been working day and night to fight the mob. She looks like Marcia Clark after the OJ Simpson trial except in even less flattering attire. I think she needs a better agent or something. And she's our only shot because everything and everyone else in the movie is ugly and disgusting. That's why action movies have starlets in them; if you ever make an action movie, make sure you have a starlet.

I think the reason a lot of people are loving this movie is because Heath Ledger gives us the best Joker anyone has ever seen or even thought of. Every person who read the comic has no choice but to point at the screen and say, "they finally got it." I think comics will now look to Ledger's performance when they write new Joker issues, meaning that he has become an instant iconoclast. He has changed the way generations will see this character, a character whose popularity has never waned and probably never will. It adds to the tragedy of his death and maybe a bit of glory to his legacy.

Santa Cruz and Batman

This weekend was really busy and fun.
I went to Santa Cruz with Stark and Vince, and we saw "Bach in Leipzig"
and "Romeo and Juliet" at Shaekspeare Santa Cruz. We also saw a mother otter and her baby off the pier and rode the Giant Dipper, which is celebrating its hundredth year without actually being a hundred years old.
My camera was lost and found out of batteries, so no pics exist except in our memories.

Yesterday we saw Batman in the IMAX. I liked it except when he somehow gets televisions in his eyeballs and keeps fighting despite those televisions broadcasting sonar readings of the entire building in a dizzyingly fast fly-through that makes a ride on the Wonkatania look like a paddle boat on Lake Merritt. If you see it though, consider the IMAX option. It makes the experience approximately 12.23 times better.

Car for a Day

Yesterday I got a car. I didn't know what to do.
I went to the Marina and walked to the end of the sea wall and looked at the birds and the peace. I saw an otter. It is the second time I have seen an otter in the "wild."
I watched the sun and a man using a whole squid to catch a shark.
I also saw an American Indian couple from Texas and a very nice family.
One beautiful seagull spread his wings and the wind took like a kite. He landed on the railing right on the other side of the sea wall, making a high arc over my head for no discernible reason.

I drove to the top of Grizzly Peak, the highest point in Berkeley.
I listened to the motorcycles shooting down the mountain and watched the sun stoop lower to reflect off the coming fog. I stood on a log and looked over a forest and a city and a bay and an ocean. My heart beat a little faster.

I wanted to eat at a restaurant I wouldn't eat at if I didn't have a car, so I picked up Tarzan and went to a Thai restaurant on Solano. It was spicy and good, and the waiter was very nice.

We went to the bar, and I asked Bully the bartender what the coolest thing would be to do if you only had a car for one day. He said he would wake everyone up on Lombard St.
I asked Cha Cha, but Cha Cha gave me a stupid answer. Bully said, "seriously, I would drive up to Grizzly Peak."

I said I did, but I also walked into the ocean.

Where have you been lately?

Hi.
I am feeling much better. You know how people say, "I didn't sleep last night"? They almost never really mean it. Asthma is one of those fun ones that make you stay up all night. So there were about four night in a row through which I only slept about one or two hours. That kind of insomnia makes everything a blur. It makes writing really hard to do. Those waking hours are pretty useless, but I still got a lot done, e.g., I read at Studio One, published a book by Sara Mumolo, and went to the Idiolexicon reading. During the past two days, I have slept something like 20 hours. I am still quite tired, but I know ther are many of you who read this blog every day, and I wanted to let you know I am OK, well better than OK. . . I'm getting better.


My reading with Barbara Claire Freeman and Trevor Calvert went quite well by all accounts. I feel like I wasn't even really there. I felt disconnected on stage, like none of my thoughts were connecting with any of my other thoughts. Barbara Claire Freeman was pretty awesome. She made a big deal about how much Jack Morgan has grown in popularity over the past two years (how many more people hate me than did before), and Trevor Calvert was great. I always like him; he said something funny about Optimus Prime I liked. Jared White came out to join a lot of other people. It was a good turn out for a Friday in the summer. I thought it was altogether a really good reading, and I am proud to have been a part of it. By the end of this summer, we'll get all the kinks out of the series, and we will be f'ck'n awesome by next season.

The Idiolexicon reading was on Monday. It was a fun reading in kind of a weird venue. I like the idiolexicon readings. Marcus Merritt had some strong poems I really liked. Hugh Behm-Johnson was awesome, too. I have to say that I didn't expect that good a reading. It;s been a while since I've heard some good poetry. It's been a while since I've been to a reading that wasn't mine. I think I am going to take a short break from reading so that I can start going to other people's events more. Cafe Royalle had a really nice bartender.

After Idiolexicon, my friend, poet Sophie Sills, said there was a secret performance down the way of none other than Michael Hurley at Gravel & Gold. That's where I learned that it was Bastille day. Gravel & Gold is a nice little store where hipster ladies can shop; the ladies who run it are really sweet people who like to be nice and have parties and dream about marshmallow cupcakes. They had nothing vegan, but they had 2-buck-chuck. I wanted to buy something so I could support them, but I didn't really fit in the store with all the women trying on dresses and sweaters, so I stayed outside, which was fine because I got to hear Michael Hurley, who is selling paintings there, from start to finish. I felt fortunate.

We went to a bar after that that I didn't like very much with people I thought didn't like me very much, which is pretty normal on that side of the bay. No one introduces anyone to anyone else in San Francisco.

Yes, We Can, Can, CAAAAN!

I Like Chickens, but don't be one!

I am reading tonight at Studio One Art Center on 45th and Broadway in Oakland at 7:30. Should be awesome.

I also got three poems published in Mary Magazine. I am very happy to be published next to poets I admire.

Reading Tomorrow Night!

Hi.
I (Jack Morgan) am reading tomorrow night at Studio One Art Center in Oakland near the corner of Broadway and 45th St. at #365 45th St. with Trevor Calvert and Barbara Claire Freeman.

It's exciting to get to read with people I really admire. I hope that you can make it. It will be the best poetry reading you've ever been to in the best space you could imagine this side of the bay. East Bay is pig-latin for Beast!

Fuck You, Asthma

Asthma is the chronic inflammation of the lining of the lungs.
Many famous people have had asthma, including Mathew Broderick, Marcel Proust, and Che Guevara. Mathew Broderick was suffering throughout filming "Glory," a movie about the Civil War involving horses and smoke. Marcel Proust worked from bed, crippled by his lack of oxygen. Che Guevara used a rifle as a crutch through three revolutions, but while suffering an attack, bedridden, he was captured and executed in Bolivia.

Jack Morgan has asthma, too.

I read a book by Betsy Lerner that said that writers are often drinking asthmatics. That was the first time I was happy about having my disease.

It's what they call a hidden disability. It's a secret I keep when I am out with friends and my chest starts to tighten. I also hide it from lovers so they won't worry or get freaked out. None of my friends today have seen me have an attack. It is an embarrassing event.

Nicholas Cage in "Kiss of Death" said asthma was like breathing through a straw.
I think it's more like a fish dying. When a fish dies in or out of water, their mouths open wide. They suck in air or water and seem not to let it back out. They try valiantly to breathe but their bodies can't absorb the oxygen no matter how much air they take in. Human lungs fill, but nothing you need stays. There's coughing, your body trying to get rid of something that isn't there. Your bronchial tubes think there must be something poisonous in the air affecting the lungs, so they constrict, crating an old man emphysema wheeze. Every muscle tightens, all your skin goes hot. Fingers tremble, and their nails turn blue. And like a fish, you still try to suck in oxygen. Sometimes medicine works, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you have to go to the hospital, and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you live, sometimes you die. It almost always happens at night while everyone is sleeping.
For me, most attacks are only noticeable to the person having it. I hide like a Doberman dying in the shadows, hoping I'll get better soon enough for no one to notice. But the last two nights have been pretty bad ones. I am very sick right now.

I once went to the beach, hoping the fresh air would save me, lying on the sand like something the ocean rejected; that was the worst attack I've had in years. Someone had to carry me into a car and drive me to the hospital. I came scarily close to dying on that one. Ten years later, this attack is not nearly as bad, but it's pretty horrible, and you never know if you're going to get better with asthma. This might be the one that does me in. I haven't really slept for two days.

But I am determined to live like a normally-lunged person. I never let people see me like this, I never let it affect my life. When I am in the hospital, it's kind of hard to hide that from people, but I have signed myself out and gone back to life against their hardy admonitions. I have driven a car so messed up on all the drugs they gave me, I laughed about surviving the ride home. I don't take medicine anymore. I disagree with doctors who don't have asthma and don't know what it's like to live with something that might kill you some day. I never believe what they say because the only thing they ever want to do is make you more dependent on the drugs they're pushing. My lifestyle is much too active and spontaneous for that. If that means almost dying every five years or so, so be it. I would not die in the company of the world's best quacks, prodding me with needles, all of us wearing masks. I also refuse to stay in bed. Marcel Proust had it pretty bad, but no matter how bad it gets, I will crawl outside with a rifle as a crutch. I will travel and hike and camp and exercise, all things advised against by the world's leading MDs.

I am getting angry now, so I am gong outside to drink the only medicine I allow myself: coffee. strong coffee every morning, a strict diet, and daily exercise are the only way to combat asthma. As for my current attack, the worst has passed. I think tonight will be a better one. If not, that's fine, too.

Active

I've been watching This American Life on Showtime. I watch a lot of TV when I visit my parents. They go to bed early, so I catch up on the good shows on Showtime On Demand. My favorite is "This American Life." You've probably heard the show on NPR, but if you haven't you should start Podcasting it. It's pretty magnificent. I feel like I am getting sentimental when I watch it, like I am losing control of my tear ducts and other points of weakness. Just that good? Maybe. When I'm home, I never watch TV; there's too much going on, and it feels like a waste of time. I like good television, but I think most of it's worthless. Ira Glass is not worthless.

I used to think about what I would do if another war like Vietnam came along. Now I have friends coming back from the war in Iraq, and I wonder what I am doing. I am against the war and always have been I think, but what am I doing about it? I always feel like I am missing something. I always feel like there is something more I could be doing.

Yesterday I yelled at an old friend for making a racist remark about Mexicans. Nothing pisses me off more than racism. That old friend was a Marine in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he often says things out of ignorance. Sometimes he says things I don't snap at right away. I don't want to always be that guy who points out the shortcomings of others. I try not to say things about eating meat, and I try not to bring up politics with Republicans; I try to dodge. I am going to stop dodging. Even though I rarely roll over, I feel like I roll over too much. I am going to be more active from here on out.

Base all ethical positions on logical deliberation and report.

• War in Iraq=wrong
• Eating Meat=wrong
• Racist Remarks=wrong

I joke a lot about violence because it tends not to scare me. I am a big person who grew up with violence. I know it's wrong. I probably won't stop joking about it, though.

All I do is talk. Sometimes I think that I am making headway. Other times I think that I'm not doing enough. No matter how much I talk, no matter how many times I vote, I feel voiceless.

Still Down Here

I haven't been posting lately because I have been in the poetry-starved southern California. If there were more poetic events here, people might be more interesting. Southern California is filled with beautiful people who are entirely uninteresting. I see pretty people all the time down here who act and speak as if they have no brain.

Speaking of no brain, have you gotten the smear emails about Obama? I've been getting them lately. They turn my stomach. Anonymously written emails telling lies about people are sickening. More sickening, perhaps, are the people who read them and fail to look up that stuff on Snopes or Fact Check and just blindly believe such garbage. People should have learned by now to believe nothing any anonymous email says. Pills won't make your penis larger, you have not won the UK lottery, and there are no Nigerian businessmen who want to give you their money.

I saw "The Merry Wives of Windsor" a couple nights ago, and I will see "As You Like It" tomorrow. Last night, my friends called me on speaker to wish me a happy 4th. Every time I leave the bay, I feel like a chump for doing so.

following up: the last few readings

Last Thursday, I read with Sophie Sills at Adobe Books in San Francisco. It was a good reading, and many people came, and I got a book called Jane Fonda's Life in Pictures because I mentioned Barbarella in a couple of my poems. People I didn't know were giving me high fives after the reading.

On Friday, I got to introduce Ann Svilar, Chris Stroffolino, and C.S. Giscombe at Studio One Art Center in Oakland. It went over very well. I think that the reading series at Studio One is going to be awesome and only get awesomer as we go. Stroffolino had me dancing, Ann spun a good yarn, and Giscombe is always a pleasure (one of my favorites).

On Saturday I flew to LA, and that night I saw All's Well that Ends Well at the Old Globe in San Diego, which was marvelous.

On Sunday, I read at the Smell with Aaron Kunin, Stan Apps, and Sara Mumolo. I think that people liked Jack Morgan's poetry, but I was hoping to meet a new audience by coming to LA. It seemed like everyone there was someone Sara Mumolo invited, and I just thought that there would be more people there. If I lived in LA, I would go see Kunin and Apps read. I saw both of them read in Berkeley not so long ago, and I thought they were great, so what is going on in LA? Why isn't L.A. supporting its poets when they are so good? I suppose LA is a bop-dead city these days. I have always gotten the feeling in LA that there are many cool things going on without anyone knowing it. There are artists in LA living in the same building who don't even know each other. The Smell is a really great location, and the readers were all good, too, but no one knew about it I guess, so the turn out made it one of the smallest readings I have ever done, which isn't the worst things that could happen, but it made me a little sad. I really wanted to get to know the LA scene. I wanted to be introduced to new people. It was a really fun reading, though. Mark Wallace is going to read there next month. He is a good one; I like him. I think people who live in the area should make it out to see him.

I also went to Lost Souls Cafe. I'd been wanting to go there for a long time.