WEBVTT

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I'd like to end now with
this last poem, which

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is the title poem of the
manuscript Bird Avenue.

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Bird Avenue is-- the book is
Bird Ave. When I was a kid,

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they didn't have the period.

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And I didn't know.

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So I would look at Bird
Ave. And I knew Ave Maria

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and all those-- the hymns.

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I knew of Ave. And
I knew from science

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that bird meant ave
or ave meant bird.

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So I thought, well,
that's awfully redundant.

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But I didn't know
the word avenue.

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So I was always fascinated
by Bird Ave. There

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must be some secret meaning.

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I was so disappointed
when I found out

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there wasn't an avenue.

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But anyway, this was
a main thoroughfare

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in San Jose where I
grew up, especially now

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that the freeways
is built. Anyway,

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there's a little bit of
Spanish you could probably

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catch it from the context.

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"Bird Avenue."

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"Bird Ave."

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Life on Bird.

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It's tough.

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Cat-eyes, me, and Mousey.

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Estrolándonos y
marchando con mission.

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Man, (SINGING) I can't
get no satisfaction.

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In and out.

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Lost baby, baby, oh, baby, baby.

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Hits all summer.

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We wore tees, tights,
skirts, tough teased hair.

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Talk tough run.

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Developed una reputación for
the toughest burns on horseshoe

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tough.

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From Memorial Day to
our Labor Day weekend,

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we have the key to the drug
locker of our own developing

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temples.

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Highest kites in the district.

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Favors all over town.

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And we owe nobody shit.

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For Cat- eyes was beautiful.

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Mouse made of wizard holes.

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Nobody over 4' 11" could
contain her except me.

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The connection we always had.

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We scored when we wanted.

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Plus we were ethical.

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Esa, Mouse goes that
first initiation.

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You gotta understand
about ethics.

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She had it then.

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All total control.

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Banging my head on the
blacktop for effect.

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You flaca fea face got ethics.

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[LAUGHING]

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And she gave me one
of those mouse grins

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and made lemon crap out of my
cheeks before letting me up all

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righteous rage.

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Seen class.

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Need pomp and circumstance.

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Man, we were better
than military.

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Beauty, brains, and brass.

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Man, we were the trinity
that invented it.

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The model Rambos.

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I could have killed her easy.

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And she knew it.

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We'd kill it in
ourselves eventually.

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We knew it all.

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The code in the symbology.

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The poetics and the order
of place and gesture.

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We were homed for the killing.

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Prize for the time our ganga
de carnelias y rosarías would

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burst.

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We tended that
bust, cultivated it,

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blistered it, hitched
ourselves up to its hearse,

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and made up bird on the
reigns of some wild ride.

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From the tracks to
Willow Glen and back.

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Man, we were running our
own private miracle mile.

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Man, it was tough.

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With cat eyes on
the corner buttering

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a moth ball stupid and blind.

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Me and mouse always
ready to take advantage

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of a relevant situation.

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Don't fuck with
us was our motto.

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We're here to serve.

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What's the ruse?

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Listen, watch, be silent,
with the conquest hidden code.

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Man, it was tough
to know it all.

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And we haven't learned
anything since.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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