for Isabelle's birthday gift
she crushed it in rage
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Campfire Songs
“We can share the women we can share the wine. We can share what we’ve got of yours ‘cause we’ve done shared all of mine.” Grateful Dead
The hourglass bottle of Night Train wine hung on the four remaining fingers of Wino Sam’s bereaved hand, a stub of his ring finger poking into the scratched surgeon general’s warning against the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. “My mother drank every day while I was cooking in her hot box and I turned out fine,” was Wino Sam’s shaky dismissal of the warning.
Sam’s brood of drinkers and recovering Tweakers stared into the campfire they had built to dry out their socks after the river crossing. Tattered toenails and foot flesh dried like beef jerky as the wood crackled. Smoke from the burning branches slithered between their toes and into the redwood canopy above, hypnotizing the 4 hobos with a demonstration of adaptivity. What is this life except an series of adaptive efforts to assimilate the surroundings while maintaining personality?
As if reading their minds, Sam announced, “Better to cross the river under the bridge than get caught on the bridge with your pants down when the sheriff gets a hard on for highway walkers.”
“You got that right.”
“Yes.”
“Grunt”
His chorus of followers muttered through the smoky air without enthusiasm. They didn’t need to confirm that an interview with the sheriff was not on their list of life goals. Warrants, drugs, lack of identification, bad attitudes toward authority, old resentments, short tempers and long rap sheets made them steer clear of the well-patrolled highways and city streets of the besieged city of Santa Cruz. The war for philosophical liberty would be fought without their cooperation. Thanks to Wino Sam’s equanimity they did not entertain delusions of strict neutrality. No, they were allied with themselves first and one another second in the spirit of the immortal hobo. Their sworn enemy was the uniform with the training to beat them down and the firepower to render their carved willow stick clubs useless and the savage army of uniformed soldiers with unfeeling demands who out-manned their own guerrilla outfit.
“If you can’t beat them then retreat,” Wino Sam has explained during one of his late night strategy sessions. “We’re not activists and we’re not stupid. The City Hall uses the Police to distract attention from what the Mayor is doing. We fight the Police and the city council pushes through their agenda. The Police aren’t the problem; they’re pawns and we can’t beat them. And even if we could beat them they aren’t the ones we need to beat.”
Wino Sam explained that the laws prohibiting innocuous actions such as public drunkenness, pissing behind a dumpster, sleeping in a park, occupying an abandoned building, camping in your van, smoking pot, growing vegetables in the highway median…etc were not the product of the Police but instead the strategy of the City Council to regulate the average man.
Without exploring the topic too deeply and overwhelming his troops with philosophical trifles, Wino Sam concluded that things were, “Fucked up and fucked down.” so claiming and defending their own territory would better serve them all for the uncertain future.
“We won’t go down without a fight,” added one of the sockless men who wiggled his toes near a steaming pair of shoes.
“Careful, Tommy,” cautioned Wino Sam, “Our fight is here and patience is our best friend. Let the hippies and college students go to jail.” Then Wino Sam tactfully referred to their unresolved legal issues. “See, they’re not in our situation.”
Head nods fell like sleepy horses among the men surrounding the fire. A college student with resources and a clean record was at liberty to protest the status quo without the same ramifications as your typical wood-dwelling hobo.
One of the dark men in his patched jeans turned his damp socks with arthritic toes as the group suddenly heard the coming of a bicycle. They all held their breaths and wrinkled their leathery brows as the sound came closer. Then the strain broke as they heard Oggy’s moaning voice singing, “Oh will you wear white, oh my dear oh my dear, oh will you wear white Jenny Jeeeeeenkins?”
“It’s only Oggy,” said Wino Sam in his calming voice. Oggy was on his way to the mountaintop to visit his guru and that was a mission the men neither hindered nor helped. They listened to the rusty bike chain grind and squeak in alternating misery through the forest path along the railroad tracks. They heard Oggy’s voice singing until he reached the narrow washout that demanded total concentration to navigate. Silence prevailed upon the forest as Oggy coasted across the deteriorating landing below the railroad where a mud slide had left only a thin band of dirt hardly a foot wide that the bicycle tire cut into. The men knew the difficult passage well and were not surprised to hear an alarmed cry as Oggy’s front tire slipped over the edge of the dirt path and caused his bicycle to tumble forward throwing him headfirst into the train ties. They heard the sound of Oggy’s guitar striking the creosote railroad ties and the echo of painful moans soared like the course of a butterfly through the woods. It was dark and the hobos around the fire could only imagine the chaos that followed as Oggy had to slide feet first down the muddy ravine to retrieve his bicycle. Then he has to drag it up the hill or else traverse the slope at a 45 degree angle, tugging the bicycle behind him and grabbing onto tree branches and roots in his desperate struggle for the summit. He gets there and then finds his damaged guitar and juggling pins and puts them back in his basket. The basket immediately breaks and falls onto his warped front wheel. So the next ten minutes are spent feeling blindly (it is pitch black in the forest) for the piece of wire coat hanger that Oggy is using to secure the basket to the handlebars. Then he is on his way, aiming for a dot of light shining from the moon onto the forest floor. Abraham awaits with his wisdom to soothe Oggy’s tortured psyche.
“Men,” says Wino Sam, “We are out of wine.”
The hourglass bottle of Night Train wine hung on the four remaining fingers of Wino Sam’s bereaved hand, a stub of his ring finger poking into the scratched surgeon general’s warning against the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. “My mother drank every day while I was cooking in her hot box and I turned out fine,” was Wino Sam’s shaky dismissal of the warning.
Sam’s brood of drinkers and recovering Tweakers stared into the campfire they had built to dry out their socks after the river crossing. Tattered toenails and foot flesh dried like beef jerky as the wood crackled. Smoke from the burning branches slithered between their toes and into the redwood canopy above, hypnotizing the 4 hobos with a demonstration of adaptivity. What is this life except an series of adaptive efforts to assimilate the surroundings while maintaining personality?
As if reading their minds, Sam announced, “Better to cross the river under the bridge than get caught on the bridge with your pants down when the sheriff gets a hard on for highway walkers.”
“You got that right.”
“Yes.”
“Grunt”
His chorus of followers muttered through the smoky air without enthusiasm. They didn’t need to confirm that an interview with the sheriff was not on their list of life goals. Warrants, drugs, lack of identification, bad attitudes toward authority, old resentments, short tempers and long rap sheets made them steer clear of the well-patrolled highways and city streets of the besieged city of Santa Cruz. The war for philosophical liberty would be fought without their cooperation. Thanks to Wino Sam’s equanimity they did not entertain delusions of strict neutrality. No, they were allied with themselves first and one another second in the spirit of the immortal hobo. Their sworn enemy was the uniform with the training to beat them down and the firepower to render their carved willow stick clubs useless and the savage army of uniformed soldiers with unfeeling demands who out-manned their own guerrilla outfit.
“If you can’t beat them then retreat,” Wino Sam has explained during one of his late night strategy sessions. “We’re not activists and we’re not stupid. The City Hall uses the Police to distract attention from what the Mayor is doing. We fight the Police and the city council pushes through their agenda. The Police aren’t the problem; they’re pawns and we can’t beat them. And even if we could beat them they aren’t the ones we need to beat.”
Wino Sam explained that the laws prohibiting innocuous actions such as public drunkenness, pissing behind a dumpster, sleeping in a park, occupying an abandoned building, camping in your van, smoking pot, growing vegetables in the highway median…etc were not the product of the Police but instead the strategy of the City Council to regulate the average man.
Without exploring the topic too deeply and overwhelming his troops with philosophical trifles, Wino Sam concluded that things were, “Fucked up and fucked down.” so claiming and defending their own territory would better serve them all for the uncertain future.
“We won’t go down without a fight,” added one of the sockless men who wiggled his toes near a steaming pair of shoes.
“Careful, Tommy,” cautioned Wino Sam, “Our fight is here and patience is our best friend. Let the hippies and college students go to jail.” Then Wino Sam tactfully referred to their unresolved legal issues. “See, they’re not in our situation.”
Head nods fell like sleepy horses among the men surrounding the fire. A college student with resources and a clean record was at liberty to protest the status quo without the same ramifications as your typical wood-dwelling hobo.
One of the dark men in his patched jeans turned his damp socks with arthritic toes as the group suddenly heard the coming of a bicycle. They all held their breaths and wrinkled their leathery brows as the sound came closer. Then the strain broke as they heard Oggy’s moaning voice singing, “Oh will you wear white, oh my dear oh my dear, oh will you wear white Jenny Jeeeeeenkins?”
“It’s only Oggy,” said Wino Sam in his calming voice. Oggy was on his way to the mountaintop to visit his guru and that was a mission the men neither hindered nor helped. They listened to the rusty bike chain grind and squeak in alternating misery through the forest path along the railroad tracks. They heard Oggy’s voice singing until he reached the narrow washout that demanded total concentration to navigate. Silence prevailed upon the forest as Oggy coasted across the deteriorating landing below the railroad where a mud slide had left only a thin band of dirt hardly a foot wide that the bicycle tire cut into. The men knew the difficult passage well and were not surprised to hear an alarmed cry as Oggy’s front tire slipped over the edge of the dirt path and caused his bicycle to tumble forward throwing him headfirst into the train ties. They heard the sound of Oggy’s guitar striking the creosote railroad ties and the echo of painful moans soared like the course of a butterfly through the woods. It was dark and the hobos around the fire could only imagine the chaos that followed as Oggy had to slide feet first down the muddy ravine to retrieve his bicycle. Then he has to drag it up the hill or else traverse the slope at a 45 degree angle, tugging the bicycle behind him and grabbing onto tree branches and roots in his desperate struggle for the summit. He gets there and then finds his damaged guitar and juggling pins and puts them back in his basket. The basket immediately breaks and falls onto his warped front wheel. So the next ten minutes are spent feeling blindly (it is pitch black in the forest) for the piece of wire coat hanger that Oggy is using to secure the basket to the handlebars. Then he is on his way, aiming for a dot of light shining from the moon onto the forest floor. Abraham awaits with his wisdom to soothe Oggy’s tortured psyche.
“Men,” says Wino Sam, “We are out of wine.”
More Opinions That Don't Apply To You
This video really doesn't have anything to do with you because you are special and nothing you do impacts or affects the world at all. You go through your life in a bubble of denial and that bubble protects every one else from anything that you do. You are special because the self-absorption skills you have developed over the years have actually succeeded in insulating all of your actions from the laws of physics. So, this video is pure entertainment to watch while your Fox channel plays some commercials. Hahaha. It's funny to watch the people talk about peak oil because it has nothing at all to do with you since you live on a precious mountaintop that philosophically protects everything around you. You ride to work on a unicorn and Tree Gnomes wash your ass with dragon tears. The plight of other men is not your concern so it doesn't matter if you watch this or not. Go back to sleep and dream of flying whales in their plaid skirts doing somersaults in the sea. This is all an April Fools Joke. haahaha. Got ya! Oil never runs out like your laundry detergent.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Can I buy my sweatshirt back?
Don't you hate it when you go to Goodwill to find some used shorts that don't make you look like your father and you go into the dressing room and take off your sweatshirt and hang it up and then try the shorts on and decide they are as bad as anything you already own so you put them back on the rack and get on your vintage and sweet 1974 vespa ciao moped and drive off and are nearly sideswiped by a blind old lady and then you try to get to a Jack In The Box to take advantage of their buy one chicken sandwich and get another free deal but then you decide that their food is garbage and you already got scammed by a con artist this week so you need to conserve your money...so you ride your vintage and sweet 1974 vespa ciao moped back to the van you live in and cook up a meal of Ramen noodles and when it gets chilly in the evening you go to put your sweatshirt on and can't find it. You look everywhere. Where the hell is it? You had it at Goodwill and then...Oh Fuck! You left it at Goodwill in the dressing room and now Goodwill is closed.
So, you think that you will never get it back because there is no lost and found box at Goodwill since the whole store is basically a lost and found box that is for sale. The whole point of Goodwill is that you can leave stuff you don't want anymore and they will take it and sell it. But don't you hate it when Goodwill gets something that you didn't mean to give away. You've had that sweatshirt for 6 years and yes the zipper has broken and it has paint and bleach stains on it but it was cool when you first got it and it serves a function so...
So...the next day you have to ride your vintage and sweet 1974 vespa ciao moped all the way across the city again to go to the Goodwill to retrieve your sweatshirt. Of course it isn't in the dressing room. But where will it be? And what will happen if you find it? You search and search everywhere. It's a blue sweatshirt with a green hood. Hard to miss. You check in the Men's department but when was the last Goodwill you went to that had organized all their clothes perfectly? Underwear is with the jeans. Shirts are with coats. All the sizes are a mess. You hunt and hunt and move on to the women's section, perversely leafing through old lady sweaters looking for your own sweater. Then you find it with the women's sports bras. It's hanging on the rack and no one has bought it. You wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing. No one wanted your sweater at Goodwill but here you are hunting for it.
Oh well. You grab it and wonder if you should steal it, basically walk out with it and pretend it was yours all along but the way things are going these days you wouldn't be surprised if they had security monitoring you. Jesus, that would suck to be arrested stealing your own sweatshirt from a crappy Goodwill in Missouri. People kill themselves over less than that. So, you get in line. The worst thing that will happen is you will have to buy it back. But there is no price tag because the employee who put it back on the rack didn't really care that there was no price tag. He probably figured someone tore it off and then left it in the dressing room. Or maybe someone took it off and traded it for something. You get to the cashier.
"I'll ring you up." He reaches for your sweatshirt.
"Well, it's funny. I've got a funny story. This is my sweatshirt. I went into the dressing room and left it there yesterday."
The cashier's look tells you that he doesn't believe you. Why would he? This has to be the first time since he's worked there that someone is telling him that they left something in the dressing room and they want it back.
"See," you continue, "This paint spot is from when I just painted my friend's house. And look at the zipper! It broke and I tied this ribbon on there so I could pull it. And this bleach spot was a splash from this kitchen cleanup job I had around Christmas at a Lobster pound."
Your desperate tone wins the day. The cashier nods.
"You're all good."
You are relieved that you didn't have to shell out money for a sweatshirt you already own. And when that is a highlight of your day then you really have big problems.
So, you think that you will never get it back because there is no lost and found box at Goodwill since the whole store is basically a lost and found box that is for sale. The whole point of Goodwill is that you can leave stuff you don't want anymore and they will take it and sell it. But don't you hate it when Goodwill gets something that you didn't mean to give away. You've had that sweatshirt for 6 years and yes the zipper has broken and it has paint and bleach stains on it but it was cool when you first got it and it serves a function so...
So...the next day you have to ride your vintage and sweet 1974 vespa ciao moped all the way across the city again to go to the Goodwill to retrieve your sweatshirt. Of course it isn't in the dressing room. But where will it be? And what will happen if you find it? You search and search everywhere. It's a blue sweatshirt with a green hood. Hard to miss. You check in the Men's department but when was the last Goodwill you went to that had organized all their clothes perfectly? Underwear is with the jeans. Shirts are with coats. All the sizes are a mess. You hunt and hunt and move on to the women's section, perversely leafing through old lady sweaters looking for your own sweater. Then you find it with the women's sports bras. It's hanging on the rack and no one has bought it. You wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing. No one wanted your sweater at Goodwill but here you are hunting for it.
Oh well. You grab it and wonder if you should steal it, basically walk out with it and pretend it was yours all along but the way things are going these days you wouldn't be surprised if they had security monitoring you. Jesus, that would suck to be arrested stealing your own sweatshirt from a crappy Goodwill in Missouri. People kill themselves over less than that. So, you get in line. The worst thing that will happen is you will have to buy it back. But there is no price tag because the employee who put it back on the rack didn't really care that there was no price tag. He probably figured someone tore it off and then left it in the dressing room. Or maybe someone took it off and traded it for something. You get to the cashier.
"I'll ring you up." He reaches for your sweatshirt.
"Well, it's funny. I've got a funny story. This is my sweatshirt. I went into the dressing room and left it there yesterday."
The cashier's look tells you that he doesn't believe you. Why would he? This has to be the first time since he's worked there that someone is telling him that they left something in the dressing room and they want it back.
"See," you continue, "This paint spot is from when I just painted my friend's house. And look at the zipper! It broke and I tied this ribbon on there so I could pull it. And this bleach spot was a splash from this kitchen cleanup job I had around Christmas at a Lobster pound."
Your desperate tone wins the day. The cashier nods.
"You're all good."
You are relieved that you didn't have to shell out money for a sweatshirt you already own. And when that is a highlight of your day then you really have big problems.
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