Caught in the thralls of a gonzo pollen

"In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient wilderness, that closed upon it as the sea closes over a diver."
-Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness 1902

These misfortunes of immortals...
Such as the recent sneezing ragtime serenade & softshoe proposition to reprise Livery Stable Blues with Jazz Crackson's Muletrain Harem Queue; an opportunity as Livestock Biowaste Relocation Engineer available for a limited time only. Mssr. Crackson, showman of the spiffiest magnitude informed me that union scale wage regrettably would not be forthcoming for the position; however, a tip jar was provided. Now, over the years, I've lost my appreciation for the braying of rank burritos; I'm sure its just my ears, some deleterious result of hearing myself whoop it up big time in the long ago & faraway. I declined. But if I'd only seen the SIZE of that tip jar....
Reminds me of the time I worked at a certain used record store: Crossbone's Rusty Needle Exchange & Espresso Bar, and things went afoul with Biff the narcoleptic bootleg peddlar. Crossbone was a craven rook of a man who would think nothing of foreclosing on the mortgage to your soul; "chump change", he'd snort. He subsisted on the dire endorphin of greed and was chained to his harbor of Marlboro lights; he kept for companion a gargoyle which maintained an unhealthy affection for scouring powder. He thought he had her on a tight leash but repeatedly she furrowed in the register to score more ajax, "its a filthy world", she'd growl.
Biff made sporadic appearances with platters of questionable origins that Crossbone made available to the General Public. On occasion Biff good naturedly threw something my way and thus we gradually became acquainted. I made the error though of entrusting a certain treasure, a rare analogue radio recording from the summer solstice '94 of some unknown eerie cosmonauts allegedly called the Octave Doctors into his hands in order to digitize for me; the sole evidence of their actual existence. Biff disappeared after that; some say the Octave Doctors would not allow such documentation revealed, the world wasn't equipped to handle it.
I miss old Crossbone. He was honest as the grave and just as ruthless. Last I heard he was hawking women's croc shoes in the obituaries of Southern Indiana. His laugh was grisly as a death rattle but his decency preceded him by reputation. Here's to Crossbone: slap on some Boz Scaggs & burn one down to the blister.


Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of El Dorado.

But he grew old --
This knight so bold --
And -- o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like El Dorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow --
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be --
This land of El Dorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied --
"If you seek for El Dorado."
-Edgar Allan Poe, 1849