News and Commentary from the World of a Professional Information Bounty Killer. A former journalist, I now roam the world as a professional information bounty hunter. What happens when a reporter becomes a librarian? We'll have to see.
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ON THE ROAD 2008: Where the Homeless Are To Be Chased Out Like Garden Pests, One Always Finds All the Progressive Chic of Nazi Germany
People living in poverty have the least access to power to shape policies - to shape their future. But they have the right to a voice.
- Nelson Mandela
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (ZP) -- There he sits, this wretch of a rogue, this public menace so foul that the local city council was forced to ban sitting on public benches for periods longer than an hour, to pass anti-loitering laws.
The wily beast grunts to himself, his natural odor fills the air with an animal's stench. He's mumbling to some invisible friend named Danny, laughing about some ethereal joke.
And he's smoking - DEAR GOD! THE CHILDREN! - a half-charred butt, leaning against his army surplus knapsack, and strumming a guitar with four out of six strings unbroken. He's got a coffee cup full of those other smokers' leftovers, half-used menthols and lights.
Mothers pull their children nearer as they pass him. A few local frat boy types walk behind him, mock his muttering. One suit-clad automaton makes a point of walking a half-moon around the unwashed, whiskered creature as he babbles into his Bluetooth earpiece theories about how the local real estate bubble is crashing like a wet paper airplane.
And in San Luis Obispo Fucking California, they're debating another round of smoking bans, too - bans on smoking on sidewalks, on those same One-Hour-Or-Less park benches, even in parks. For the children, of course. Community health and well-being, too.
These things are IMPORTANT, you know - not only does it make the health nuts happy, it veils yet more excuses to chase the idle homeless from their benches, their parks, from their very sight.
Wouldn't want to pick up any bad habits from creatures like that wild beast of a man sitting on that park bench. I mean, his simple pleasure in the open air home the world has dealt him surely harms all...
* * * *
It's not like homeboy has anywhere else to go, really.
In a county of almost 250,000 people, there are 2,500-4,000 homeless residents (San Fransisco County, by comparison, has an estimated 4500-6,000 homeless amongst its 800,000 residents) spread out in communities like Paso Robles and Nipomo, in Morro Bay and Pismo Beach.
And there's only two volunteer-run shelters, providing about 125 beds to sleep in, for all of those folks throughout the county without anywhere else to sleep, one day center for thousands spread out across a county twice the size of Rhode Island.
Yessir, they sure have their priorities straight here in SLO.
* * * *
"You must miss living here," the old man said. "I can't imagine living anywhere else."
I sipped my coffee and tried to go back to reading my graphic novel in peace. But, well, he wouldn't let up. His gray ponytail probably too tight, his bong at home to full of fucking pixie dust. An armful of progressive magazines, the NO MORE WAR! and OBAMA/BIDEN 2008 pin on the jam band tee, the token sandals and socks and patchouli stench of your everyday, Overgrown California Baby Boomer Hippie variety.
Welcome to San Luis Obispo. Mother Jones meets Dot Com venture capitalist, Emma Goldman meets the corporate raider Democrat, New Deal meets the Soccer Moms and $1,000-a-month slumlords.
"It's sad, you know. We have all these vagrants and not one of them ever seems to get the idea to move to a more... accommodating place... like to San Diego."
"I dunno. Maybe they like it here, too. Or maybe they can't afford to move, maybe they're stuck here."
Silence. Thank you all that is fucking hol-
"Not to be rude, I know you're trying to read, but they could hitchhike."
"Yeah, well... maybe they're all too fucking tired because they can't catch a few FUCKING winks in this town!"
Silence. Again.
"Sir, you don't have to use such language. It's bad for your health, man. And there's children-"
I look out the bookstore's window. The homeless dude's still sitting there, mumbling to himself. Completely oblivious.
"You think words are worse than what ya'll let happen to guys like that? Yeah, fucking regular utopia here, sure. Regular Orwell-Meets-Jerry-Garcia."
The freest of animals, an honorable, innocent beast, while I sit trapped behind glass with his self-absorbed, blind shepherds.
- # # # -
ON THE ROAD 2008: On Getting Caught Checking Out a Woman's Ass, Rich Old Wives and Old Worried Hubbies, & Being Anything But a Gentleman
Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for Woman.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
NAPLES, Fla. (ZP) -- The old man stood there, staring into the storefront, mouth gaping.
"Good lord, she does this every goddamn year!"
Inside the store a woman looking roughly half his age stood at the register. It took not one or two clerks to bag her purchases but four. In one bag went the pairs of hundred dollar jeans. In another went the boxes of shoes. And in another two or three went the blouses and sundresses and skirts.
He bummed a cigarette as he explained the ritual. His wife was in her early forties, attractive and smart enough to qualify as Wife No. 3. But while his first wife died, and his second was addicted to booze and painkillers, Mrs. Tres was sucking his seventy-year-old moneyed ass dry.
In the bedroom, sure. That's acceptable in the Viagra Age. Suck away. But in the Economic Clusterfuck Age, well, mass consumerism amounts to nothing more than bullshit comfort and protection, an equity line condom full of holes.
"I love her to death," the old man said, not to me but to the storefront. "But that woman's dumb as shit when it comes to understanding that buying for the grandkids comes first."
He adds that, yes, he has a half-dozen grandchildren to shop for and his wife, well, Mrs. Tres just blew an easy three grand without spending a dime on the kids.
Four fucking hours he'd been waiting for her to finish buying for herself. The sales, she said! Never mind the kids! The sales!
He started pacing, told me that the Marlboro he'd just bummed tasted marvelous. First cigarette in 15 fucking years, dammit. Fuck the cardiologists. His wife's greed - yes, he called it greed - would kill him first.
"Son, take my advice and be poor and single."
"Hey, that shit's the reason I don't believe in marriage."
* * * *
TAMPA, Fla. (ZP) -- I wasn't looking to get caught.
But, well, it was a very nice ass, and the way her white linen skirt clung to her as she bent over reminded me of fresh cream atop a cup of hot chocolate.
"You know, that's really rude."
How that woman knew I was checking out her ass, behind her back and bent over packing away her laptop, I'll never know. But, yes, I was caught red handed.
And I don't know what I was thinking when I responded. I probably should've just shuffled on around behind the newspapers.
Instead, something just came out of my mouth, an audible demon between my teeth, escaping.
"Your dress holds you well."
Huh? What the flying monkey fuck does that mean?
It was a nice ass, sure, and the dress definitely complimented her rather curvy frame. But women wear dresses. Dresses have no arms or hands, so simple white fabric cannot hold anything (bras notwithstanding).
"Um, thanks. Bought it in Puerto Rico last week."
And with that she rolled her eyes and wandered out towards the departure gates. At least, well, I'd been caught in the airport and not, say, in a church or at work or at a wedding by the bride.
I don't blush often. But as she walked away her hips did, indeed, seem to sway a bit more than they had before. I saw her reach for her phone, dial, and turn to glance at the ass-staring freak once more.
And she winked.
Good God. One day I'm going to get slapped in an airport.
* * * *
BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (ZP) -- She'd left me scores of messages, all over the place, asking - begging - me to get a hold of her as soon as possible. It was an emergency, after all, a crisis, the biggest thing in the world.
In her messages, she made it sound like she'd just walked in on Death herself going all reverse-cowgirl on Satan in the living room. A life-or-death situation, go-time on the reality gridiron, a world-shattering event of such importance...
"J, you're, like, cheaper than my therapist. And you make me laugh."
She's just a tad drunk. It's 2:30 in the morning. I'm in Florida on vacation, sober yet full of Scotch, perfectly prepared red snapper and a dozen raw oysters.
And she's just kicked her cheating douche of a boyfriend out of her life, for good this time, out in Southern California. Sent some of his shit to the ex-wife, some to charity, and some, well, she just set on fire in the back yard. It's 11:30 p.m., her time.
"Death and Satan screwing. That's just sick, dude."
I'm sitting out beneath a full moon on the phone, smoking a cigarette on a park bench on no-smoking resort property. I'm supposed to be one of the nice guys, a good catch - I'm supposed to help her sort through went wrong, to offer insight into how to date decent guys...
Ha. Now that's fucking funny. Oh well. Life's just one quirky-ass motherfucker sometimes.
"Chica, look, men are like fucking potato chips. Don't like the BBQ ones, pitch the bag and get another flavor," I tell her. "Hey, look at me. I love being fucking single-"
"You're such a liar. And you don't really treat women like potato chips, do you?"
"Worse. I treat women like heroin addicts treat empty needles. Not gonna lie."
Silence.
Yeah, trust me. I know my weaknesses pretty well, thank you very much.
- # # # -
THE ZENFORMATION WIRE: Culture, Arts, and Reviews From Oxford Fucking Ohio's Biggest Dork
OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Bringing back a popular 2007 series because I apparently intimidate the shit out of some of the hottest college students in this here town.
Had a reader's roommate tell me that a supermodel - looking blonde is scared that she's not hip enough (my God, looked her up on Facebook and choked on my coffee...) to roll with yours truly.
Me. Seriously, I'm the least hip person, the biggest dork in town. I drive an old pickup, buy clothes at thrift stores, and spend way too much time online.
I'm a fucking librarian. I just do my thing. But I did, however, get a kick out of hearing from your BFF that you're afraid to make eye contact and think I'm some arrogant Radical Chic blogebrity motherfucker.
A few months ago, I gave one part of this stellar New York based act, Tone Tank, a shout-out in a Quotations post for his earlier solo online release.
And, well, the duo of Tone and Kray are back with a dangerous assault on the ol' sound holes, complete with killer beats, lyrics for the working world, and flows so tight you'll pay to download the rest of their catalog.
RADIOHEAD RAINYDAYZ REMIXES Amplive, with guests Free Online Album, 2008 [ZIP file and Artwork here]
One of my personal faves of the last year, because it combines to almost completely foreign sounds into something perfect. Amplive brings together the likes of Too $hort and Del the Funky Homosapien to create a sonic masterpiece that redefines international artistic boundaries.
One of my favorite discoveries this year, courtesy of a North Dakota reader who thought, well, since I like Tom Waits, old shitkicker tunes, Delta Blues, and Old Crow Medicine Show, why not introduce me to Calgary's best kept secret outside of Canada and the Border Badlands?
She described the band's live shows as, and I quote, the closest she's come to being seduced by an upright bass in forever.
ONLINE VISUAL ARTS: Controversy For Change TUBESTEAK EXPOSES OBAMA Online Series, Parts One, Two, Three, Four The Super Rumble Mix Show, via Boondocks Bootleg Channel By Aaron McGruder and others, 2008
You know, if there's one thing I can't stand, well, it's my White Liberal Elite countrymen who are still running around, living in that "Yes We Can!" propaganda a month after a historic election, completely unaware that the election of the first brown-skinned president in this country means nothing more, at the end of the day, than just another career politician gaining a position of power.
Yes We Can! ... be the last country in the Americas to gain a non-white person as head of state. Even Canada beat us, people. By a decade. I mean, it's not like this day wasn't a foregone conclusion, given that the U.S. is only just now accepting that it's never really been a Nation of White People...
And, Jesus Fucking Christ, get a sense of humor. McGruder, the creator of the lightning-rod perfect Boondocks comic strip and animated series, has thrown the first real satirical punch at the President-Elect with this equally historic web series, featuring an actor calling Obama a sell-out Po-Po, dissing Bush with snarky subtlety, and mocking the Thuggin' Brother stereotype, simultaneously.
Well, ya'll wanted change you could believe in. How's that?
FILM: "I can Legally download that for free?" Ever wish you could just sit around and watch classics like George Romero's Night of the Living Dead or the film noir classic, D.O.A., on-demand and in high quality digital video, right at your desk?
Or that you could find public domain footage of historic events to use in ad campaigns, marketing presentations, or, well, to put together a kick-ass multimedia project for a class, without having to worry about copyright issues? And you're, say, a broke-ass college student? Or unemployed?
Well, thank you, Internet Archive folks, for making life so much easier for the rest of us. I've referred more patrons to this one online source more in the last three months than I think I've ever referred anybody to a single site.
Seriously. And it's legal. Just watch those Creative Commons licenses.
THE KNOWLEDGE WEB: That's a Grant-Funded Remix, Yo! FOLK SONGS FOR THE FIVE POINTS Digital Artist in Residence Program, 2008 The Lower East Side (NY) Tenement Museum
One of the most engaging and unique interactive online museum exhibits ever, the Folk Songs for the Five Points project was created in association with the Tenement Museum's Digital Artists In Residence Program (DARP).
Folk Songs for the Five Points truly is what it claims to be: a celebration of cultural diversity and change, using “folk songs” as a metaphor to explore immigration and the formation of identity in New York’s Lower East Side.
I spent a good four hours fooling around on the site and, yeah, I'm still loving the use of interactive maps and recorded sound to create a self-interpretive aura, one without any answers or definitions but with enough emotional pull to allow for a wonderful user experience.
DARP, one of the most intriguing and dynamic digital media residency programs in the world, is funded through grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and other organizations. The Five Points project represents the first phase of the The Folk Songs Project.
One of the coolest things about being a librarian, by the way, is the fact that I get paid to play with stuff like this.
- # # # -
WHAT'S SO LONELY ABOUT SPENDING A THANKSGIVING ALONE, ANYWAY?!?: Of Cioppino Over Turkey, Long Hikes, Solitude, and Movie Dates with Oneself
OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm not a Thanksgiving guy. Haven't been for some time.
The simple truth of it is, well, I quit looking at the holiday as anything more than a day off long ago because, well, when your family has spent so many years spread out all over one gigantic continent, it ceases to hold any other importance.
Back on the ol' family farm, back when I was a kid, the day meant something: mornings full of deer and squirrel hunting, afternoon meals with every second- and third-cousin within 200 miles, afternoon football games in the apple grove. But I'm no longer a kid, the farm's long gone, and the bastard we sold it to cut down the grove to make room for his Arabians...
My family, for the most part, quit celebrating the holiday a few years ago. My mother, in fact, had a monumental revelation: she's never liked spending all day cooking while everyone else lounges around, doing nothing and waiting to gorge.
This year, she and my father went to Denny's. Gotta love 24-7 roadside dining. Instead of some overblown feast, they went on a short vacation, just the two of them.
As for me, well, dating a few members of indigenous tribal organizations over the years, and a few foreigners to this country curious about why Americans drape themselves in ancient English Puritanism in the guise of Native American feast, probably hasn't helped, either.
* * * *
I do give thanks on Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong here.
I just prefer spending the day doing my own thing, alone.
This year, for instance, for my feast, I went for a culinary form of gratitude to the numerous immigrants who helped build this country, who've helped feed the world by coming to this often hostile land to raise fruit of the chaff and vine, pull fish from our coasts, and who helped better diversify America for the better - as opposed to those pesky religious nuts near Plymouth Rock, who came here to conquer for a damning White God as British exiles.
Rather than turkey - not being able to eat beef, well, turkey's already a staple of my diet - I went with a meal more fitting to a John Steinbeck novel than to a Cotton Mather sermon. Cioppino, a seafood stew originally developed by Italian fishermen along the wharves of 1800s San Francisco, seemed way more satisfying and spectacularly American to me than the usual dead bird and stuffing.
I put the seafood, broth, and veggies on to simmer over low heat shortly after breakfast, turned on the stereo, and cleaned the kitchen table to the sounds of The Knux and Positive K.
Trust me. My spending a family holiday in solitude is a good thing. Spares folks the embarrassment of having to watch me attempt to dance in a bathrobe.
* * * *
People often ask me if I ever, well, just shut up. I do, offline, tend to talk a lot. But in truth, I can go days without saying anything to another human being, without speaking a word. And I'm one of those people who revels in days like that, the solitude, the alone time...
Hell, I'm a loner.
While the immigrant stew simmered, I went for a seven-mile hike, watched all sorts of wonderful subtitles - for - my - uniligual - ass films I'd been meaning to see for years (from Srđan Dragojević's Bosnian War classic, Lepa Sela Lepo Gore, to Volker Schlöndorff's exploration of Nazism, Der Unhold, to Bruno Barreto's Brazilian political thriller, O Que É Isso, Companheiro?), before, finally, dining in workout sweats, in perfect, contemplative silence whilst reading last month's Harper's Magazine.
Completely alone.
Reminded me of those chilly November mornings as a kid on the farm, sitting in a tree stand, shotgun in hand, meditating on all sorts of adolescent things (mostly girls) and listening for the sounds of broken twigs and crunching leaves.
It was a perfect Thanksgiving, really.
At least by my standards.
- EPILOGUE -
"How do you do it?" she asked. "How the hell do you cope with being alone on Thanksgiving?"
This was her first holiday away from her family and, despite spending Turkey Day with a friend's family, she felt so horribly, miserably alone. She couldn't afford the plane ticket home, couldn't afford to miss what could be the biggest opportunity of her life.
Her first big photo shoot in two years, scheduled the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Fate is sometimes nothing more than a tiny plate of food during someone else's feast. Not that she needs to lose weight.
"Well," I typed back, "I kinda like the peace and quiet. Life's too hectic not to have some downtime from the world."
"You're one of the strangest people I've ever met, you know that? It's kinda cute but, dude, hella freaky sometimes to read about."
She told me she still had my cell number in her phone, that she'd been trying to call me all day. It was then that I realized that, yes, indeed my phone was off and there were quite a few missed calls logged in the damnable thing.
Without missing a beat, I cleared my throat and waited for an incoming call. I guess I am a strange dude - for a moment I'm actually annoyed that a hot (chica, you know you are) fashion model is bothering my solitude, wanting to call and chat and have somebody other than her roommate's cat to keep her company...
"Happy Thanksgiving, Jason! Haha, thought you wouldn't really answer."
Call me an asshole, but I almost didn't.
- # # # -
THE PERPETUAL CURSE OF THEPERPETUAL EX-OTHER MAN: Of Strange Women, Nosebleeds, Morning Bitchslaps, & Tom Waits During Sex
OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Mark your calendars, because this doesn't happen too often.
I ran into a situation this weekend so fucking batshit, so completely and utterly strange and drama-filled, that I'm not sure I'm able to find any words to describe it.
Other than something like, Jesus H. Christ! Now that, dude, is fucked up.
Oh well. Lemme give it the ol' college try...
* * * *
It started out with a simple, awkward-as-hell run-in with the Fruitcake Sex ex-fling on a frozen sidewalk in the middle of the night, with her current boytoy. That one cruel act of fate beget an awkward breakfast Saturday morning, just the two of us, and my inviting the pair to a friendly dinner at my apartment that afternoon.
Things were fine until, well, my Inner Asshole realized that the new beau - one of those lazy, wealthy Limousine Liberal, Trustafarian types - was both a nosey bastard (the guy routed through my bookshelves, CDs, and DVD collections like a cracked-out raccoon - totally unacceptable) and extremely intimidated by yours truly (he kept reminding me how rustic and Southern Gothic I seem in person - apparently, he'd heard a bit about me.)
Things went downhill after dinner, particuarly after the second bottle of Chardonnay.
How a conversation about how all three of us liked listening to Tom Waits after (and sometimes during) sex quickly devolved into a melodramatic circus of hurt feelings, bruised egos, periodically crying/pissed ex-flings, and, yes, even the panties she left in my apartment last December ended up getting thrown in her face after Mr. Novelist Wannabe found them in my bedroom closet is beyond me.
Confused yet? Don't worry, join the club. I'm still confused myself.
* * * *
I can't even begin to explain the impromptu make-out session in a crowded bar late Saturday night, eight hours after the fucked-up dinner and after the Local U's home hockey game, the one where I literally walked into the place where she and the beau were having drinks, grabbed her by the hair, and shoved my tongue down her throat - five feet away from the guy.
Yeah, an asshole move. I know. My bad. Had nothing to do with being possessive, or jealousy, or anything of that sort. I did it, my own bruised ego and drunken rationale aside, to see if I could get the guy to take a swing at me.
The guy pissed me off to the point where, yeah, I just wanted to have a good brawl with a dude with a law degree who grew up in a Gated Community somewhere back east.
Those guys are like punching bags for the working class. Seriously. But the fucker, well, just stared like a goon, fumed. He wouldn't bite.
I didn't expect for her to grab my hair, shove her hand down my pants, and kiss me back. I think, yeah, she expected her pussy of a beau to be just a tad bit more possessive - you know, do the Boyfriend driven into a Jealous Rage thing - than your average bar stool warmer.
Anywho. I left without a word...
Didn't think anything more of it, went back to drinking and skulking alone, went home and crashed.
And then, Sunday morning, I answered a knock at the door, only to find a red-eyed, angry young woman standing there, alone.
She kissed me and then - out of the fucking blue - slapped me so hard that my nose bled for a good hour after she stormed off.
Didn't offer an explanation, didn't say a word. Just a kiss on the lips and a firm open palm to the cheek.
* * * *
Like I said.
Not sure how, really, to even begin describing this weekend...
Enjoy the Tom Waits video. For some reason, that's all I've been listening to for the last few days, and I'm feeling, somehow, like somehow I'm up Shit Creek again.
- # # # -
OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: Of the Global Economic Collapse, Mexican Revolutionaries, Insomniac Ponderings, And Making Out with a Stranger
OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- It's three o'clock in the morning.
And I'm neither drunk nor sober.
I'm simply enjoying a cold November storm, in fact, a lovely late night stroll through the rain, my gray Stetson sagging beneath the weight of a thousand cold water droplets.
Smoke from my thirtieth Marlboro of the day forms wispy plumes around the brim, water seeps down my jeans into my boots, the baptismal waters of a man deep in thought liberating the soul as Ariat heels clickclack down miles of sidewalk.
Good God Almighty! I say to myself, eyes closed,leaning against a telephone pole, There's just nothing quite as liberating as a man's thoughts, alone, in the rain.
Personal freedom, just like money, seems to be in short supply these days.
* * * *
I'm thinking, for some odd reason, about a different approaching storm - the shit blizzard of a failing global economy that, yep, my country's elite and their backroom financiers have unleashed, a Pandora's Box full of sub-prime demons, bailout monied monsters, and reckless, destructive capitalist devils of all shapes and sizes.
And, for some reason, General Zapata popped into my waterlogged head, a ghost from some long ago learned history, ¡Tierra y Libertad! now less of a rallying cry and more of a ominous echo against the bad debts of the Gringo Nation.
Hey, these things happen, market collapses. Especially when things like consumption as status and not of function has been encouraged for more than two decades...
Well, goddamn, you've gotta quit reading so much, dude.
Yeah. Head like a slingshot, really. Put the right pebble in, pull back, and release. It's self-loading.
* * * *
Suddenly, from nowhere, they're upon me. Two very drunk women, bundled in Northface jackets and impromptu rain gear, stagger out of the shadows from a side street, their heels clicking away an off-key collegiate chant.
"Ooooh. It's a cowboy!" One girl says.
"Ah.... ah... A CUTE cowboy!" The second girl says, too drunk to realize that the cute cowboy is right in front of her.
I stop, tip my hat, smile. A welcome disruption.
Some things, well, are just too damned depressing to dwell on for too long. And I don't know of a single straight guy or lesbian who doesn't appreciate being called cute by two mysterious, albiet drunken, hot women in skirts at three in the morning, either.
"Mr. Cowboy, I love your BOOTS! I, like, love, ohmygosh, cowboy stuff!" The first girl says.
"Yeah, I get that a lot."
The second girl bums a cigarette and begins what I call the Wasted Girl Play - the attempt to indicate, through wobbly eyes meant to be seductive, the convienient throwing of dead weight meant to be a casual arm around the waist, that, if I'm willing...
"I LOVE cowboys! When I was in Texas once... And I hooked up with a cowboy. I like... reVERSE COWWWgirl...."
The first woman, by the look on her face, is both the more sober one and the one most embarrassed. I laugh and discreetly slide out of the way-too-desperate girl's grasp. The first woman, too, bums a cigarette.
" We're kinda fucked up, sorry,"The first woman says.
"It's okay. Happens. So's the world, if fact."
Again, I laugh. Another welcome distraction.
* * * *
The first woman and I chat - turns out she's been sobering up for hours as her now babbling friend had been getting more and more wasted - for a bit, over cigarettes, as the second woman rambles on, in fact, to the same telephone I'd been holding up before I'd surrendered it to her.
Also turns out that her father just found out he's being downsized after Christmas - hefty early retirement buyout from the sounds of it. He's been with the same firm since before she was born and, well, he's already put her on notice not to expect as much help with college expenses as she'd like.
So, she explains, she figured she'd better go out and get drunk with her whore of a roommate before the real world kicks her family in the ass.
* * * *
"Um, this is kinda silly, but can I try it on?"The first girl asks.
"Try what on?"
"Your hat. Looks Mexican or something. Like gunslinger, you know?"
I take off the hat, start to plop the soaking wet thing atop her head. And then, well, I don't know if it was the soaking wet hair, or the way her shivering skin shuddered beneath a cold street light, but I asked for something in exchange since I'd be giving up my shelter from the storm...
She didn't even hesitate. I guess, well, either I'm a good salesman or it was merely a good deal worth taking advantage of, when the money's getting tight.
And by kissing a stranger, yes, by even embracing and turning a peck into an impromptu make-out session, we were able to both share warmth and the brim of an old Stetson in the middle of a November rain. A hot mouth and a warm body beats shivering in the cold alone.
Drunk Girl No. 2? As the telephone pole proved to be too sober for her, she fell to her knees just in time to puke up all sorts of foul stuff, including what looked like semen.
Right in front of an ATM machine, down the street from a real estate office.
Land and liberty, General Zapata's fighters used to chant. There are, of course, still other things in life that are free, are open to better negotiation and barter and open free market exchange than our countrysides and our freedoms.
And yes, it is better to live and die on one's feet, even in the rain, than it is to live on one's knees spitting up a stomachful of vodka and jism.
Even in hard times, a fair trade in an open, honest marketplace, where each party uses the other for something in exchange for something, beats the alternative.
* * * *
Hey, chicks dig the hat. And the "cowboy stuff."
What more is there to say, really?
Really wish I'd bothered to catch the woman's name. Or to have given her mine.
That's a market where I'd consider investing again.
- # # # -
PRESIDENTIAL ERECTION 2008: Voter Independence, Political Ideals over Parties, and Other Dispatches from a Media-Construct Battlefield
Left-libertarianism combines the libertarian premise that each person possesses a natural right of self-ownership with the egalitarian premise that natural resources should be shared equally. Left-libertarianism holds that unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in common, believing that private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an equal amount, or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from natural resources.... Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner edited a primer, The Origins of Left - Libertarianism: An Anthology of Historical Writings. This text places Hugo Grotius, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Spence, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and Henry George in the left libertarian tradition.
I've somehow managed to confuse (and piss off) a lot of folks, simply because, well, for as much as I sometimes ramble on about politics, I've never really made it clear what, exactly, my ideological views are or which party I support.
My bad.
Personally, I prefer the term Sandburg Socialist, since that great Midwestern bard not only influences my writing, but whose ideals also serve as the basis for my political views. And, no, I don't fit either the graph above or the wholly separate, more theoretical wiki definition, either.
I always figured people would pick up the clues I've been dropping on this site for years...
Nothing personal. I'm a Man Without a Party, militantly nonpartisan. And there was no chance, period, of me voting for either Millionaire Right Authoritarian Guy. I swing for the opposite corner when voting for president - it's only in local or congressional elections that my sense of populism kicks in and I'm willing to compromise for the sake of regional stability.
If your choice won, good for you. Here's a cookie. If your choice lost, well, good for you, too. And you get a cookie as well. Hey, I get a cookie as well - I voted and, yep, my choice even got something out of it.
I voted based on principles. And I've done so, well, for most of my adult life. I don't give a shit who won or lost the White House. Democracy isn't a football game - unless you choose for it to be. Though, in all honesty, given the Hank Junior performance on CNN election night and the fact that this election season led to all candidates spending nearly a third of the GDP (exchange rate) of Afghanistan on marketing...
I was shocked that anybody thought I was a Democrat or a Republican, actually - seriously, I keep forgetting that most folks read or hear "Left-leaning centrist" and think "Democrat." And wow, a lot of folks not only think I look like a cop, they also think I apparently vote like one. Just because one reads the word Libertarian on a computer screen does not mean I ever considered voting for the Republican Reject Party candidate.
And, yeah, it's been quite enjoyable hearing about it and seeing some folks' reactions. Don't worry about offending me - hell, I've got skin like a rhino's ass when it comes to political barbs. Gets the adrenaline flowing, it's good for you.
Again, sorry if I confused you. And kudos to the slightly more than 60 percent of the eligible voting population in these United States that actually voted for something, anything.
Even the 500 or so folks who showed up in protest throughout the Rust Belt to vote for the real winners this Fall - baseball's Philadelphia Phillies. Now that's a protest vote.
Yes, I really did vote for one of those candidates down in the Green Zone in the graphic above. Took the Political Compass survey a few moments ago and, well, guess what - that's where I fall and, nope, despite a Democratic Party win, still the same.
And, no, I never considered either major party an alternative.
* * * *
Needless to say, there were some seriously funny quotes this Election Cycle about my presidential choice and political views:
"Wait... am I drunk or did you just say you're centrist because you're between an anarchist and a socialist? Dude... that's ...that's fucked up..."
- Obama supporter
"You voted for the Socialist? I shoulda known you were a Commie..."
- McCain supporter
"Dude, you're the reason she took down the Obama stuff and voted for Nader? God, I knew it - you're a Republican, you fucker."
- No, it's called choice. I just helped her find more options.
"Aren't you guys supposed to be like, not voting? Fucking French faggot. This is America. Leave."
- Intentional Nonvoter. Steal it, man. Hell, I stole it.
"Man, shit. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not crazy and not the only one refusing to buy this bullshit anymore."
- A Guy Who May Just Vote Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich in 2012
"Jason - Ohio could fall because of your callous disrespect for this country with those stupid posters. This is not FUNNY!"
- Ex, Obama Supporter
"Man you're still the same arrogant fucking righteous prick ... when it comes to politics. Fuck you and that wacko Liberal Socialist bullshit."
- Another Ex, McCain Supporter
By the way, Ohio folks cast roughly 85,000 independent or small party votes for a Third Party President this cycle, somewhere between an estimated one and a half to two percent of the ballots cast for that office in the ol' Buckeye State. I'm far from the only one. It's nothing new.
Camouflage. Capitalist. Kingdom. And there are quite literally millions of us out there, who will never, ever vote for Thing 1 or Thing 2. Don't feel bad - it's the American Way.
* * * *
Oh well... Thank all that is holy that we - as well as the citizens of the world - survived another run-of-the-mill election year in the United States.
God bless America! Hosanna in the Highest! Let freedom ring! Hell, Yes WE Can't! or whatever the Obama folks were screaming all day... so exciting, so riveting, so...
Damn, something about Election Season just...
... Just...
Wow, sorry about that. Don't worry, the bastard pops up whenever I get excited. Six, seven times a day. It doesn't bite, no, but watch your eye.
And your back. Once slipped into an awkward position with someone, yeah, it's no fun taking the chick you're seeing down to the local Urgent Care because she told you to go in easy and then your arms gave out, thought you may have accidentally torn...
Horrendous experience. Forgot her purse, thus had to call one of her roommates. The official story the roomie got was, well, she'd slipped in my shower and somehow landed on the plunger.
Oh wait...
I forgot, we're not talking about Erection Reasons, are we? Sorry. Distracted. Cute girl just walked by in front of me. Dead ringer for the girl I was just talking about.
Damn, why do presidential races in the country always remind me of somebody getting fucked in the ass? Oh, that's right. Voting for the President, in the United States, usually turns out to be much dirtier and less seductive, at the end of the day, than your average guy-girl anal sex mishap story.
If this had been a midterm election year, I probably would've thought about that time after an all-night house party, walking into a kitchen, seeing two lesbians tossing dildoes at a blow-up doll. Like lawn darts. I laughed, one of the women went sidearm my way, and I caught a hard shot right in the ol' nutsack.
Hey, don't ask me. That last one just popped into my head.
* * * *
God Bless America, you dirty, dirty girl. That's right, spank me. Like that. Slowly, gently... Ow.
And here, have another fucking cookie. All outta strawberries and melted dark chocolate. Just, please... no crumbs in my bed. Frankly, if the ball drops this time, well, you get to clean it up and wash the sheets in the morning.
You know, let's not ruin that audacity of hope afterglow or whatever they call what we just did to Democracy.
It feels so, you know, dirty. But we'll always have the memories.
- # # # -
EPILOGUE: Yes, I know I promised a lot of folks I'd abstain from political writing during the 2008 Election because, well, I tend to irritate people on the Right and Left equally with my crazy "cynical idealist" politics. But, Good Gawd, what the fuck just happened?Don't worry, folks, I'm putting the Political Blogging Beast (HA!) back in the box - she's all yours again.
Congrats to ya'll Obama folks and McCain folks, too - voting is, after all, the ultimate sign of courage in this world and it's nice to be reminded that even dirty-politicking has become truly about the campaign and not skin color.
THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: Of Voter Choice, Crab Fries, Murder Rap, and Staring at a Woman's Nests in Private
"God gave Americans two middle fingers to put up because, well, dammit, he knew our crooks would give us two political parties ."
- VERY WISE OLD MAN, Oxford, Ohio
While I will not endorse any presidential candidate, I will say that this one quote is the reason that I'm voting my conscience this year.
And if you're one of those people who thinks there are only two people running for ol' POTUS, well, you're going to be extremely disappointed.
Quite frankly, the politicos can go fuck their Battleground State shit because I'm tired of stepping over their corpses, their shattered homes and livelihoods and worthless promises. And actually, I'm looking forward to extending my own double-barreled, one-fingered salutes to the minions of The Party (Why give the same corporate product packaged two ways different names?) as I exit the polling station.
Your party? Your problem. Not my bag of worms. But please, if you're able to vote, vote for who you believe in - not who you think looks best on TV, has the prettiest posters, or who's got a MILF for a running mate. And, Jesus Fucking Christ, ignore all that political insider blog chatter - it's just background static put up mostly by biased viral marketers meant to get you, the voter, to conform, obey, submit.
* * * *
" Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust or lose your sense of shame or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will or hypocrisy or a desire for things best done behind closed doors."
MARCUS AURELIUS (121-180 ACE), The Meditations, III. 7, Hays trans.
Yep, another very wise (albeit long dead) war veteran who influences nearly every ballot I cast. Always blows my fucking mind how fortunate I was, as a child, to have my grandparents' library.
* * * *
"There are two things the wise man must never do in a college bar - one, don't ever let your friends catch you making out with married hairdressers from Kentucky, and, two, never challenge do Irish Car Bombs with those guys."
- THE ZENFO PRO, Who is not a wise man
* * * *
"Dude, unless you've got tortillas, organic eggs, and some decent chorizo, I ain't getting out of this bed in this hella FREEZING apartment to fix your pinche ass breakfast. "
- PETTY DEL ÁTICO, Sunday House Guest
You know, it's been years since I've heard a woman holler the words Dude, chorizo, hella, and pinche at me, all in the same breath, from beneath a ball-shaped mass of my pillows, blankets, sheets, and, yes, even the horse blanket.
I used to think it was just a Latina thing. Now, years after I first noted the Night Owl Nester phenomenon, I'm convinced there's some secret international women's organization that regulates such behavior. Hey, not my fault you almost missed your AFTERNOON flight, chica.
* * * *
"I wouldn't say you're sketchy. No... you're too weird to be sketchy."
- BETTY BADSHROOM, 22, Local U. undergrad, at an Uptown Oxford bar.
* * * *
"You listen to... oh my god...these murder rap guys are, like, rapping about shooting, Oh my God, people! Like, don't you ever listen to, like, John Lennon?"
- A VERY DRUNK BLOG READER, As I was once again played Designated Driver (And she was too drunk to remember)
Well, no. I mean, after all, John Lennon's dead. Murdered. A wealthy British ex-pat who was shot, actually, by a true American Psycho in the streets of New York, one of the deadliest "civilized" cities in the world during the 1980s, because the shooter had voices in his head tell him to do it.
Those rap guys just document what guys like Lennon never seem to get - the world's a fucked up place, and, sure, while "Give Peace a chance" sells a lot of records to middle-class kids, it's a tired remnant of a dead, overplayed, mostly white collegiate 1960s counterculture, about as relevant to people from working-poor backgrounds, especially those who live in mostly urban areas in fear of things like police cutbacks, cuts to social services and after-school programs, drug wars, and drive-bys, as - no pun intended - a fucking hole in the head.
Besides, I just dig Celph Titled and Jedi Mind Tricks more than I dig the Beatles. Especially after midnight. I'm a bit of a Johnny Cash at dawn to rockabilly by lunch to hardcore hip-hop by dusk sorta guy, really.
* * * *
"Seriously, I feel like a Pilgrim that was just shown how to make popcorn by the natives for the first time. Why did no one ever tell me about these Crab Fries before?"
Seriously, even if you're not a baseball fan, these guys are just too good at finding the stories that really matter to the online fans of America's Pastime.
- # # # -
SHORT TAKES AND SUCH: Life From the Other Side of Rock Bottom, Of Strange Crises of Identity, & How Fate Sometimes Invites Drama Queens to Lunch
OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Miss Poison stirs her drink, laughs loud and defiant, as her boyfriend - a boisterous wild man named after an Outlaw Country singer with a similar reputation - bounces around on his bar stool, singing along to a 1980s heavy metal song on the jukebox.
Everyone at the table has a drink, in fact. One woman's drinking a cocktail, I have a plastic cup of Bud Light, the boyfriend has his beer bottles lined up like steadfast, perspiring tin soldiers from some Hans Christian Anderson story. Another woman nurses her British import, not quite sober but not drunk, and makes a comment about how she just can't stomach domestics anymore.
But one drink is different, however, a ballerina of a booze-free cocktail amongst the trollish Jack-in-the-Box of libations. Miss Poison proudly displays her new tattoo, recently acquired to celebrate a milestone. It's been almost two years since she chose to rebuild her life as a clean and sober woman.
Having been free of cocaine and PCP for more than a decade now myself, well, I can still remember how each day those first few years felt first like the reconquest of a stretch of battlefield long held by an entrenched enemy, how around every corner I'd find booby traps and snares lying in wait.
Some friends were supportive; some took it personally or just couldn't understand it. I walked my path back to being drug-free alone and, had I not been so stubborn, well, it might have been a bit easier to simply go to swallow my pride and go to a few more meetings than I did. I would've learned about things like root causes, triggers, and acceptance in less, shall we say, awkward ways.
We each walk our paths and choose our footing each step, whether we accept it or not. Back in my hardest days, on one of my many soul-searching trips up and down California's Central Coast in the late 1990s, I met a former Buddhist nun who said those words to me.
Still true, after all these years.
Holy shit. I could've been dead by now, a corpse in some Colorado cemetery. Instead, I've traveled the country, watched sunsets over the Pacific and danced in New Orleans streets during Carnival, dined with pro ballplayers and even held the hands of an award-winning actress as she confessed, in tears, how much she hated Hollywood.
Life's too damned fun to be a goddamn addict, man. You're even a respected member of --
Suddenly, to my left, a camera's flash breaks the darkness. I'm out of my introspective moment, just in time, to turn and wink as the photographer shoots another digital image. Miss Poison's boyfriend is fetching himself another beer, another cocktail for her friend. The other woman at our table is sipping her drink and staring into her PDA, texting away the night.
The juke's even playing one of my songs - the dark rumble of Howlin' Wolf explodes through the speakers, "Evil" seeping into the ear canals of unsuspecting college kids and locals. I look around the now packed bar and see the look of shock on the middle-aged patrons, who suddenly smile as they realize someone young played something so classic and old.
And there sits a happy Miss Poison, begging the photographer to snap pictures of her in her glam rock outfit, new pics for her MySpace page. She's smiling and striking poses and laughing, grabbing her tits and tilting her head this way and that as the flash goes off again and again and again.
Yeah, life really is fucking good when you've got something -anything - to live for, especially when you're one of those people blessed enough to get a second chance.
* * * *
LOS ANGELES (ZP, via World Wide Web) -- She confirms what it seems like everyone here in Oxford Fucking Ohio has been telling me lately.
Something disturbing. About my appearance. My mannerisms. How I carry myself.
She's an expert, after all, in appraising these sorts of unfortunate things. In fact, she frequently spends her days hunting down people afflicted with similar issues - and offers them jobs because of it.
"Jason, it is with deep regret that I must inform you that, yes, you do indeed look like, at least in these shots, a cop."
She's laughing. It's a painful diagnosis. I am not amused.
"You're fucking shitting me."
"Nope. Actually... I think I could even get you some background action work, maybe even a few limited core gigs or a few lines. Would you be interested?"
"You're fucking shitting me."
She's no longer laughing.
"Hey, casting for things like police dramas, you look for a lot of the qualities you have. Jawline, eyes, demeanor, and build. And you, my friend, look like a bonafide police officer. At least a TV cop."
I guess I should provide a bit of embarrassing background here. Last weekend, an undergrad walked up to while I was contently sitting on a bar stool, sipping a beer. The chick called me "Officer," apologized for bothering me while I was "off-duty or whatever," asked if I'd talk to pair of her guy friends at another bar, who were about to get into a fight. Even after explaining that I'm not 5-0, she still insisted that I walk next door to calm down her friends.
Funny, yes, but, well, as I relayed the rather amusing story to several friends, I discovered that a lot of people in this town think I look more like a cop than a librarian. Kinda freaked me out a bit, to say the least.
"So, hon, what about as a librarian? Or as a blogger? Would you -- "
"Jason, seriously. Do you really think anybody is going to mistake you for a librarian?"
"You're fucking shitting me."
"Hey, I call it as I see it. You do know chicks do tend to find that extremely sexy, right? Quit bitching about it."
Okay, so maybe looking like a cop's not a necessarily a bad thing.
* * * *
RICHMOND, Ind. (ZP) -- She did, at one time, think I was "The One." Women know what I'm talking about here. The One.
It was more than that. She broke my Golden Rule for friends, even lovers, within my own home. If I catch you, say, cutting up some white powder in the bathroom, and you lie to me about what it is, well, you're gone.
No hard feelings. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
But now she knows better. She called me, in fact, under the pretense of a friendly lunch in her former hometown. Just as friends, to see how I'm doing, to catch up, to even apologize in person for how she'd behaved back then.
I'm old enough, experienced enough, to the point where I should know better. Against my better judgment, I agreed to meet her. I walked into that Hoosier Country cafe and knew, as I saw her fumbling with what looked like a color printout of a web page, that I'd probably be walking out before I even had a chance to order.
"Chica, look, I'm sorry if you're upset. And I haven't seen you or ____ since. It's just a stupid blog..."
She always had a flare for the dramatic. She waited, in fact, until those elderly folks were seated at the booth behind us, in their Sunday School finest, to throw the printout - all five pages and the folder - into my face.
"So were you fucking her when we were together, or just playing both of us? She thinks this is fucking funny... Do you think I fucking think this shit is funny?"
"Well, one, I don't care what you find funny. And two, no, ___ and I never hooked up. Three, it's none of your fucking business."
And then come the real fireworks, the angry verbal A-Bombs over all time's personal Hiroshimas. I let her lay it into me, just sat there listening, like a rational adult.
She didn't believe me about the whole I didn't fuck your sister thing, didn't like the fact that I hadn't been completely honest about my reasoning for kicking her ass out of my life back in 2006, didn't like reading about it years later.
Hell, I don't like reading about it. I didn't like living it. And, well, we're talking two years ago here.
And if she hadn't called, I probably wouldn't have wasted the gas driving to Indiana on an amazing Sunday morning for a brunch that never came.
As I drove back, I stopped at a gas station a few miles from the Ohio border, grabbed a granola bar and a cup of rather shitty coffee, sat in the truck and ate a simple, quiet lunch all by my lonesome.
Ya know, I could've faked it if she hadn't been a fucking cokehead. Still using. Fuck, she was high in that fucking diner. And, hell, her sister was the cooler one, hot and down-to-earth, too.
Man, life's too fucking short for that shit. Drama. Too much fucking drama.
- # # # -
HOODLUM EMERITUS LECTURES AT THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Hustlers, Youth, Politically Incorrect Humor, and other Vulgar Desplays of Wisdom
CINCINNATI (ZP) -- Brother Lexus pushes up from his lounge chair, two sable-colored, tattooed arms raising him from the most comfortable seating in his tiny two-room apartment.
I've been talking shit for a good five minutes straight at this point, trying to get a rise out of the supposed born-again pacifist and sometime adherent to the Five Percent Doctrine.
"Man, how your Old Negro ass pray to Mecca when you can't even get out a motherfucking chair? What you gonna do? Throw a TV Guide at me, Uncle Remus?"
It's been ten years since I last had a chance to jive on the great Brother, once one of my home state's hustler of hustlers, grand teacher to many young juvenile delinquents of all things good, hard, and motherfucking hood - including certain former punkass white kids from rural Southside.
I've heard stories - still have a few nightmares, in fact - about what can happen when some college - educated, cracker-ass jester makes the mistake of calling him a racial epithet outside of the proper circumstance. It's not pretty and, well, it's true what they say about hydrogen peroxide being the cure-all for bloodstains.
And now he's pushing 40, an old man too young, living in one of Cincinnati's worst neighborhoods, working shitty day jobs and waiting for the day when his healthcare professional girlfriend finally says I Do! and they head off into the West as man and wife.
Okay. So I was just hoping I hadn't read the man's face wrong and wasn't about to end up a missing person. Not gonna lie.
We're a long way from Virginia these days, in more ways than either of us would care to remember.
* * * *
He's not smiling as his tree-sized legs straighten. I hear the leather of his Timberland boots squeal as he makes it to his feet. His bootblack Under Armour tee strains in agony as his ebony chest and shoulders expand to almost twice the width of mine.
He's almost a foot taller than my five-nine ass. In fact, he's always been taller, bigger, stronger, older, and, well, much more of an O.G. than I could ever be, thanks in part to a series of state-sponsoredvacations. For a brief moment, I feel like a child about to have his ass handed to him by the neighborhood bully.
After all, Brother Lexus was the man who taught me which end of a crub (slang - a modified short crowbar, easily concealed, painted black and covered with grip tape) brings the pain all up on a motherfucker and which end is best used to bodyshop up on a ride, taught me how to fight dirty, hard, and quick, yet also encouraged me save that money, not to flash or flap gums, to go to college and to not sully my adult record.
We're both men of peace these days, well-read, and long past of fighting primes. But, well, we both still know how to take a pound of flesh off a cat if push comes to shove. I may still respect the man, even more so for changing, I tell myself, but I will step to his ass and represent Southside.
Three giant's steps and there's a large fist pushed into my chest, a meaty black digit driven into my sternum like a railroad spike. His biceps, honed by thousands of hours logged benchpressing away years of confinement, each are roughly as big around as my neck.
Oh well, so maybe representing Southside won't last long.
* * * *
Without smiling, he explains that, well, before I come all up into his castle and disrespect, I'd better be grateful that he journeys now, mostly (he does still drink beer, after all, but doth not dine on the swine), along the path of a peaceful and learned disciple of the principles of put forth by the teacher Allah the Father, Clarence 13X. And 13X, you see, was a man born and raised upon the same Virginia red clay that had once fed and nurtured in the pair of us the idea that all men were equals and brothers.
Yes, he says, he can overlook the fact that last century's prophets of Gods and Earths were mostly wrong about the nature of white folk and their supposed devilishness. In the 21st century, it has become imperative that we move past race and embrace Africa as the Original Home of all men. But in HIS house, he says, no one of the Caucasian Persuasion is allowed to forget that it was Europeans and their pale North American and Oceanic descendants who brought the world two hot wars and one cold war, exploited the Motherland and South America and Asia almost to the point of complete destruction...
"Well, amen Reverend. Now you gonna preach it or bring it?"
He stopped and looked suddenly lost in his own mental notes, like a physics professor at a dinner party who suddenly remembers that he's lecturing over the wine and cheese. I wasn't sure where he'd picked up his Poor Righteous Teacher act, but, well, personally, I appreciated it more than what I'd expected to be a much more painful hook to the jaw.
"Sheeeeeeit,* we been through too much for me to hate up on you. And I know that deep in that big white head of yours, mos def, you meant no disrespect."
"Dude, I am so sorry. I just, you know, like just we were kids, man, No offe-"
He pushed that finger harder into my chest. I suddenly felt ashamed, self-conscious of my ethnicity and familial history, embarrassed over the fact that I've spent much of the last decade living as a free, middle-class white man.
"Hold on now. I know you think your academic shit don't stink, but you better listen when I'm schooling your peckerwoodlibrarian ass..."
* * * *
I stared up at him with the same wonder and humility I'd felt when I first met him, back in the day, back when this monster of a man interrupted a rather boring night at a fast-food joint in my hometown.
I'd been studying an opponentless chess board - my regular partner was tied up with woman problems. I was hung over, melancholy but appreciative of the time alone, on a Friday night. Five minutes prior, everybody in the joint had run out to the parking lot. A fight, I'd heard, and some cat had put a piece to some other cat's head.
Hey, none of my fucking business. I had my Mc-Fucking-Nuggets, a shake, and no chess partner. I only hoped they finished their beef elsewhere. I was, however, quite annoyed at the fact that somebody couldn't get that screaming sow of a woman outside to shut the fuck up before the Po-Po rolled by...
He was a suave motherfucker back then, in his Karl Khani jeans and silk shirt and black leather duster, with his gold chain and matching tie clip. He sat down and calmly asked if I was looking for a game - he'd learned to play in a housing project in Jackson Ward, never imagined that us country folk knew how to play.
We talked for a bit, about all sorts of things but mainly about why I hadn't moved from that booth, how I was able to focus surrounded by shoutin' niggas and fools. He liked my answer, appreciated my strategic non-involvement, ability to observe my surroundings, how I could give him the names, describe the faces of every last single person in the dining room without looking up...
After he'd wiped the board with me, was up a good few games, he made me an offer - to play a different sort of game of skill. He said he sometimes had cash-money work for smart white boys who understood things like chess, the strategy of sacrifice of pawns to gain rooks and Bishops, the need for discretion and stealth.
A lot of people, where I grew up, heard the stories. About that midnight - colored sedan with the tinted windows, cruising the countryside between Richmond and Southside. There were sightings everywhere, rumors about all sorts of things, inner-city occupants, hustlers, yes, ballerseven. Maybe some of those stories were true.
Maybe the one-time owner of that sedan was always more of a Scientist, a Teacher, than a simple hustler. He taught many young bucks, of all colors, how to defend what was theirs, how to put up the appropriate fronts while not losing one's soul. And he was one fucking hell of a ghetto-trained chess master.
And maybe, yes, that same Teacher was about to renounce his peaceful ways and lay me out like a cheap suit. I knew that if he did, well, there'd be a lesson involved, somewhere.
* * * *
He suddenly smiles wide, ivory white teeth contrasting perfect and bright against his black chin.
He shakes a smoldering Newport and two fingers disapprovingly, forces his face into a frown, just like the central figure in that highly controversial Internet image.
The lesson, this time, was that wise men, regardless of ethnicity, knows when to behave as serious, educated adults and when to take rather childish, patently offensive race jokes in stride.
Why be angry? Life's too short.
I'd pushed it. And now the war was on.
* * * *
He was down to his last resort - the short white dude jokes. A whole plethora of material, everything from When you stand up like a man... Oh shit! You are standing! one-liners to Man, look at you... I didn't know they made an Albino Smurf jabs.
"Sheeeeeeit, big man." I continue to shit talk,still prodding like a cattleman. "Motherfucker, you saying I didn't get you all worked up? Lookin' like Uncle Ben jumpin' off the rice box, shufflin' up at me like a zombie."
"Sheeeeeeit."
"C'mon... that all you can say? Disgracing the Race, homes. I may have to have a talk with your mama once she's off my dick."
"Maaaan, your dick so small..."
Believe it or not, but this is just how most Southerners handle race relations amongst themselves, as friends, behind closed doors. Snapping on a friend, playing the dozens, even jokes about how your dick is so small, you could fuck a Cheerio and not feel it, tends to be a lot more enjoyable than a goddamn sensitivity-training workshop.
Great desensitization exercise, playing the dozens. Helps people down on their luck, broke, or, just, well, tired of dwelling on all the shitty things they've experienced, times when nobody else gives a shit where they've been, what they've done.
* * * *
"Wigger, I let you stay breathin', and you still can't shut that monkey-looking mouth. And listen to you! A master's degree, a motherfucking scholar, and you talking like you got game? Sheeeeeeeeit!"
And then, time catches up and there's a momentary burst of intellectual, adult conversation. We talk about what Over-The-Rhine's black residents really think of Oxford Fucking Ohio, along with the Local U. - i.e., the state's largest "Color-Free Zone." He fills me in on the recent "urban renewal projects" in OTR, which many working-class residents - including Brother Lexus - see as nothing more than white liberals taking advantage of cheap real estate, pushing out everybody too broke to fight gentrification.
"Fuck it, man. Let's go grab another sixer an' finish this."
He points to the chess board set up on his coffee table. Our first chess game in more than a decade. This was why I was here - he remembered that last game, when he was at his most-dirt covered, sitting in a Section 8 lot and lording over his kingdom, getting his ass handed to him by one of his Boys from down U.S. 360/460, getting beat by that country-fried Fa'mville Cracker.
I have just enough beer in me to suggest that, well, he's just getting old and that we should, possibly, hit a bar and introduce my single ass to some of OTR's legendary Around The Way Girls...
"Man, you ain't changed at all, has you? STILL looking at my people's women like you stand a chance. Please."
In all honesty, I've always looked at all people's women. I mean, who really wants to drink white milk, when one could just add some chocolate or a little caramel syrup, maybe some plum flavoring from Beijing or honey from Cairo?
* * * *
We played two more games before I hit the road. He had me in checkmate within twelve moves each game. And, at thirty bucks a game, well, I left with an empty wallet. It's hard for me to overlook the irony, given the fact that years ago, back in that McDonald's, he actually paid me - a nice, crisp Ben Franklin - just to talk, to hear out his indecent proposal, and to (ha!) let him win a few games.
Brother was once one of Virginia's hustlers of hustlers. Even pushing 40, legit, and out of the game, well, he's still able to make paper off a sucker.
Glad we didn't go for dominoes. He'd have taken me for rent.
Sheeeeeeeeeit! One more lesson, I guess.
- # # #-
* NOTE - The obscenity "SHIT" is pronounced "SHEEIT," "SHEEEEEIT," or "SHEEEEEEEIIIIT!," depending on use, throughout the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, from Philadelphia to Charlotte, North Carolina, but most predominately in Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Maryland.
THESE ARE THE VOYAGES...(WE'LL NEVER MAKE): Feverish Dreams of Space Cowboys, Ray Guns, & This World's Last Great Adventurers
The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart, the original good heart with which every man is born.
- Mencius (372 – 289 BCE), Chinese Philosopher
OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- It's amazing what one thinks about whilst staring at a moon-whitened ceiling, alone with only the sounds of crickets outside a bedroom window and menthol-scented vaporizing rub drifting up from one's chest.
Jesus Christ! When was the last time I built a fort on Mars? THAT one...? Oh FUCK... how long ago was that?
Yes, it may have been the fever I had at the time, the body's own disinfecting oven, that marvelously complex biological reaction to things like sinus infections and influenza. It may have been the over-the-counter fever-reducers, or the sugar imbalance caused by the ingestion of about a quart of orange juice before bed.
Friggin' amazing what one thinks about, really, when one is ill and alone and trying to find something to think about at well past three-thirty in the morning, something besides the fact that that person is feeling pretty damned miserable.
And sometimes I just think about fighting off a thousand and one alien invaders in the dark with my cousins, sometime back in the long-lost 1980s, a battle complete with ray guns and photon cannons that looked and behaved, strangely enough, like ordinary old hickory ax handles.
We fought many a glorious battle as children. Glorious. Fought off entire battalions of invisible mutant warriors and transparent planetary raiders.
For some reason, despite a snot-filled head and an aching throat, I started to laugh up at that moonglow ceiling. Laughed so hard that the bed shook, that the crickets outside stopped chirping.
... What'd we make that damned thing out of, anyway? An old wood shipping crate, a few tobacco rods lashed together with bailing twine...
Oh hell! J.C. and I bolted down that old lawn mower engine, used an old steel coffee can for a steering wheel...
Dammit, I forgot that damned fort used to be our space cruiser, too! We were destructive kids, but, dammit, we were creative...
I reached out from beneath my sheets, pointed a finger towards the ceiling, and fired my imaginary ray gun, for old time's sake. My lips even provided pew-pew-pew sound effects.
Once again, laughter filled the room, rudely interrupted the crickets, shook the bed.
Maybe it was just the fever. Or the over-the-counter drugs. Or the orange juice.
Couldn't figure out for the life of me, in my feverish state, why that shit literally popped into my mind.
* * * *
When I was a child, I never imagined 2008 would look so damned much like the 1980s. My dad recently said a similar thing - he, too, never dreamed that, for the most part, the 21st century still looks a whole hell of a lot like the 1960s. Sure, we've got some nifty toys these days, but...
Hell, when I was a toddler, I remember watching that first shuttle mission live with my grandfather. He promised me that one day that could be me riding into the stars, that I really could grow up to be a space cavalier, an astronaut, an explorer of the Cosmos.
Three decades later, we're still flying the same ol' space shuttles here in the U.S., and I'm obviously no closer to the stars than I was as a kid.
The Chinese government, and the European Space Agency, too, seems to be more dedicated to space exploration than the one-time space powerhouse I call home. Even the Russians, with their virtually indestructible workhorse Soyuz capsules, seem to put more into making space exploration viable than we do.
Actually, at this rate, well, I'll probably end up promising the same hollow Buck Rogers/Captain Kirk dreams to my grandchildren one day.
Like my father's generation, I assumed that by now we'd have flying cars, regular flights to lunar colonies, and maybe, just maybe, real live heroes conquering the Martian mountain ranges for the sake of humanity. We were supposed to have viable, personable robots in every home, even a supercomputer in every garage. Cancer and other diseases were supposed to be cured, humanity united, that which lies in wait for us in the skies our only potential menace.
Instead, well, man has yet to return to the moon in my lifetime, we barely have enough gasoline to keep our terrestrial cars running, and the only Martian conquests have been virtual, with video-game Space Marines retaking imaginary, demon-infested space stations through first-person shooter games.
Hell, the only viable semi-autonomous 'Bots are the ones powered by remote servers, the computerized aggregators that are currently indexing this site for keywords to store for some search engine. And most people on this planet, too, can't afford even the most basic desktop computer.
That imaginary ray gun I had as a kid, the fondness for building space cruisers and Martian outposts in backyards that I inherited from my father? Hell, the only thing a kid has to do now is add a laser pointer to the end of that hickory stick.
... Of course, with the addiction to online gaming, the increasing rates of morbid obesity in today's lazy indoor-bound children, I seriously doubt those fat-ass children of the Industrialized World still have the imagination for such follies...
* * * *
It's been more than half a century since man first reached into space, with the Soviet Union's successful Sputnik satellite launch. Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the first moon walk, four decades since a man from Wapakoneta, Ohio, hollered across the solar system One small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind.
Now, the sky is littered with satellites, wondrous things that guide our aircraft and ocean liners, allow us god's eye views of every canyon and mountain, even allow us to watch things like the Olympics and rock concerts live from the other side of the globe.
But, with the exception of the International Space Station, there are very few human eyes out there, staring down at us, watching over our world.
And those eyes don't include mine, or your's, and they probably never will in our lifetimes.
Given the fact that both of our mainstream candidates for the U.S. presidency this go-round place as much emphasis on space exploration and science education as your average golden retriever, well, our grandchildren will be lucky if there's ever anything more than a few grainy pictures from Mars and a tiny outpost in the orbit.
Or maybe they'll look up in awe at all of those other nationalities up there, in space, and wonder how the United States went from walking the moon to obsolescence in only a few short generations.
* * * *
I fell ill on a Sunday afternoon - a sunny, warm weekend day with nary a cloud in the sky. And as much as I hated to even make the attempt, while still feverish and strangely nauseous with vertigo, I did make into work for a few hours Monday morning.
And the only thing I did productive was to puke into a urinal, clean up after myself, check out some DVDs from the My Library's media collection, and to head right back home.
I spent the next 48 hours huddled in my grandfather's old flannel blanket, watching the entire fourth season of probably one of the greatest series ever, The Wire, and various zombie flicks - for some reason, films about the living dead just, well, make me feel better.
By Wednesday, the fever was gone and the head congestion was just starting to break up, so I decided to chance a half-day. At noon, I left the office to once again lay in bed and watch yet more DVDs on the ol' laptop.
On the way home, again, I suddenly remembered that old fort, those childhood dreams of being a space conquistador within the span of this third-gone lifetime. I don't know why that feverish memory stuck with me, why my subconscious mind had pulled forth and made connections to real space exploration, Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong and...
"CHINA!"
As I opened my apartment door at just past two in the afternoon, I suddenly remembered why I'd been having visions of forts and space cruisers, of an imaginary childhood in the stars, what I'd been reading about online right before bed Sunday, out of simple curiosity...
The Chinese space program. Project 921, in particular, and the anticipated launch of Shenzhou 7, and the PRC's third manned space flight in the last five years.
I till don't know why I'd been reading about space programs, really, how I ended up surfing Wikipedia onto vague pages filled with advances in Chinese rocketry...
"Well, fuck me," I exclaimed as I flipped on the laptop to find a Firefox window still containing the entry. "So... somehow, reading about the Chinese space agency's history triggered all of that subconscious shit!"
"Fucking A, dude. No more wiki-surfing while ill."
* * * *
On the following day, Thursday, September 25, 2008, at 9:10 a.m. Eastern, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) launched Shenzhou 7 from deep within the Gobi desert.
Two days later, Zhai Zhigang and Lui Boming became the first Chinese citizens to participate in a spacewalk.
Zhai and Lui's feat marks only the 298th spacewalk since the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik 1 more than 51 years ago.
And, as of this post, less than 500 people - less than 50 women - have ever reached Earth's orbit, a number small enough to comfortably fit every one of them on a single Boeing 747 aircraft.
Odds that anyone reading this will get into space in their lifetime?
I'm no statistician, but I'm going to guess those odds are a lot greater than the chances of getting a sinus infection in September.
- # # # -
OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL - BLACKOUT 2008 EDITION: Of Protest Stupidity, Libraries as Community Relief, & Other Electricity-Free Tales
OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- He fidgets with the brim of his ball cap. He's already readjusted his oversize basketball shorts four times in just over five minutes.
Homeboy finally settles into his carefully maintained slovenly student image after staring at his reflection in the storefront, adjusting his shirt one final time.
It's Thursday night, after all, and he's just explained that this is his regular Young Honey night - a weekly occurrence where he and his friends prowl the Uptown Oxford bars in search of something underage and naive, some poor, dumb, first- or second-year girl to buy drinks for and go home with.
Only after he looks perfect does he continue his drunken explanation of the Great Local U. Blackout Riot of 2008, quite possibly one of the dumbest student protests to ever grace a college campus.
"Fuck the police! They weren't gonna use fucking tear gas. This is ____ University we're talking about. It's not like we were blocking an interstate or anything."
Well, actually, the protesters managed to block off U.S. 27, the only major highway into or out of Oxford, smack dab in the middle of cleanup and relief efforts for a storm-ravaged area. And those cops homeboy's so adamant about fucking? Six agencies responded, all from areas equally impacted by a blackout that encompassed, at one point, more than one million people in Ohio alone.
All because anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 Local U. students decided Monday night to protest the university's decision to reopen campus after it became apparent that Duke Energy would be able to restore power to most buildings by early Tuesday morning.
The protest was held in front of the university president's house. Funny thing. The president wasn't home at the time. The protesters spent more than five hours chanting in front of an empty house.
And according to various sources, at one point, those police officers had canisters out and ready to go. Thankfully, things were mostly controllable, and only a few folks had to be maced or arrested.
"So what do you think the protest accomplished? Obviously, the university still held classes. Do you think this was something meaningful, or just what the local media's been calling it - spoiled rich kids whining while others are suffering in the Gulf?"
He tugs at his crumpled shirt once more and nods his chin towards a very pretty, yet not-too-intelligent looking blonde girl in a black cocktail dress. He changes the subject for a moment. The blonde, he says, gives amazing blowjobs. And she likes being fucked without a condom.
"Look, man, I've gotta go. Pussy calls. But, yeah, it was fucking stupid. We were bored. I just went because I wanted classes canceled so we could have another Blackout party..."
And with that, Homeboy wanders off into the night. I click my recorder off. It's been a while since I've tried to write as a reporter. Forgot how hard good quotes are to get. This is the umpteeth We were bored excuse for attending Monday night's protest I've heard in four days.
Yep. Some college students stage protests over things like war, poverty, and other human woes. Here? Off-campus students protest having to go to class. Because they're bored.
It's only nine o'clock at night, and, suddenly, I need a drink. It's been a while, too, since I've been so ashamed to have wasted a perfectly good interview on a completely worthless human being.
* * * *
Last weekend, the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through the Miami Valley like the wake of an atomic bomb, with wind gusts nearing 75 miles per hour shredding trees, ripping apart roofs, and turning the Tri-State's power grid into an electric version of Swiss cheese.
It's taken the better part of the week to get power back to most of the region. As I write, there are still several thousand homes still without electricity. The grocery stores and restaurants are still restocking, still reeling from having to pitch millions in spoiled food. At one point, too, the major outlets had employees stand guard over dumpsters full of rotten meat to prevent the panicked from diving for a nauseating, bacteria-ridden dinner.
The Cincinnati metro area, Hamilton and Butler counties, were hit the hardest. Fortunately for most folks, the various municipal water supplies remained mostly intact and unpolluted. The ability to shit, shower, and shave, even in pitch black darkness, was still available to most.
* * * *
My power went out Sunday afternoon, at just past two o'clock. The lights flickered back to life sometime late Thursday afternoon. My only storm damage was to a window in my living room - a gust literally pushed in a 20-pound sliding section, right over the flashing. Luckily, it didn't break when it collapsed - a pile of laundry broke the fall.
In all, I ended up pitching approximately $200 in food from my fridge. I was fortunate, as a bachelor. I know families, poor families, that had to pitch thousands in deep-freezer stock, people who are having to figure out how to suddenly feed children with what's left of increasingly devalued paychecks.
While it wasn't what I'd call luxurious to spend five days without electricity, without the ability to cook my own food or take a hot bath on demand, it wasn't all that bad. With natural disasters, well, basic things, matters of survival, tend to trump one's often petty desires for life's creature comforts.
Hell, I was just grateful for the ability to take a shit and to still have the toilet flush. And the fact that I'd, for some reason, happened to restring the ol' acoustic guitar last month. Amazing the things one appreciates at trying times.
Sure, I'll probably not want to eat another handful of trail mix or cold can of beans for a while, but, well, I was able (actually, required, as per my job function) to make it into work, to help keep my library's physical plant running with minimal resources and, at times, minimal staffing.
At one point, we were the only facility within 30 miles with working Internet access, live electrical outlets, and enough generator-heated water in the tanks to allow for thousands of hot shaves and sink-basin baths. We had thousands of community members spread out over four very packed levels. With only a handful of staff able to help them all out.
Hell, I managed to stop a major structural fire in my system's main library (a faulty emergency generator burned up), inspect all other facilities for storm damage, and, yes, even answer in excess of 250 reference questions over the course of one twelve-hour shift.
Fun week. I managed to rack up 60 hours on the job. If I were hourly, wow, that's be enough overtime to pay off a couple of credit cards...
* * * *
Actually, now that I think about it, I worked my way through that nasty-ass blackout. Most people in this town did. Including, yes, those fucking cops who worked right through that stupid protest in front of an empty university president's house.
A couple of those officers were the first on the scene of my generator fire and are currently on myI'm So Fucking Picking Up This Round list.
And that university president, too. He was doing his job during the storm's aftermath. I've seen that guy around town at more random hours of the day than I think I've ever seen any university administrator, ever. He's been talking to students and faculty, meeting with officials, shaking hands and patting shoulders and listening to complaints.
Right now, as people in Texas clean up from Ike, as other communities clean up from their hurricanes and natural disasters this summer, there's literally hundreds of thousands of folks who've been taking cold showers in the morning, dressing in last week's dirty laundry, and praying to all that is holy that they have enough gas to get to work and to provide needed services in an emergency.
But I guess that was too hard for some people. You know. Guys like Homeboy. While others are rebuilding, recovering, and getting by, he's still upset that he couldn't get in one more Blackout Party in an attempt to get his pecker wet.
And the gall of Homeboy's university, HIS future alma mater, asking someone of his obvious importance to actually do his job, to cowboy the fuck up and roll with the challenges life and Mother Nature sometimes throw our way.
In all fairness, there really weren't thousands of rioters blocking traffic and causing mayhem in this town Monday night, during the largest blackout in Ohio history. There were a few hundred actual, mostly intoxicated, agitators.
The rest were just observers, with nothing else to do. They stopped by to watch the freaks ma
