Thursday, March 30, 2006
I feel that yesterday, in commenting on The Squid & the Whale, I was more harsh than I can admit right now. I can admit that I knew I was being harsh even as I was writing that whole quip. But I won't retract. Instead, I can return to the subject for a second pass. Bernard, the Jeff Daniels character in the movie is a compelling subject in human loneliness. I said before that I could relate with him, and I think that's what sells me on this movie. At first, I thought it was funny but eventually, I just thought him sad, weak. The effect of this character mirrors that of Sean Penn in HurlyBurly and certainly Royal Tannenbaum. The arrogant, the decadent and the self-deficient. The fact that his children mimick him, that they take on his turns of phrases, and his mannerisms are a very powerful cause for thought. When most people can consider how much they have taken from their parents. Their temperament, their opinions, beliefs. What we hold sacred as truth, as definitive reality. Walt- who becomes a liar stopped in his tracks, matched by his girlfriend who actually reads Kafka's Metamorpheses at his suggestion, then cannot have any kind of lively conversation with him (because he hasn't read the story), only throws the words back at her in emptiness. I'm not entirely up to this tonight... I have other things on my brain, not the least of which is spring sprung, and the sometimes unholy consequences thereof...
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
...if'n you don't know by now...
The only thing I could really report within the last week was my viewing of The Squid & the Whale. A movie for which I had high hopes, only because I knew it didn't really get anywhere with the Oscars. Not like the heavy hitters, Crash, Syriana, Capote, Walk the Line, Brokeback.
So I saw this movie with the anxiety that it might be that sleeper hit that made it through the cracks. But instead, I came away feeling as if here was another movie that I could have left on the shelf. Maybe that's too much of a gut reaction. But I watch a lot of the HBO series with their no holds barred approach to the modern questions of interpersonal ethics, and I wonder how much of the dialogue is meant to be commentary, and how much of the remainder is nothing but intellectual shock manipulation. Like people need to see parents explaining to their children why they had an affair, and then blaming themselves for the dissolution of their children's behavior.
I mean, okay, we get it. Society is forever a continuing anecdote for human being's unceasing ability to behave poorly. And maybe the documenting thereof is healthy. Parents, in a general sense, have certainly begun to allow their children free rein with how to act in the name of "learning themselves." The youngest of the pair was Frank at age ten-eleven, completely unravelling from the effects of his mother and father constantly using each other and their children in unsavory attempts to get back at each other.
I know there are men out there as cold and self-serving as Jeff Daniels' Bernard. Maybe that's what unsettles me entirely about his character. Mostly since I think men like that are ridiculous, and Noah Baumberg said in his "commentary" that he intended for that character to be unwavering in his rigid arrogance. You want him to relent in some way. Maybe see it from someone else's perspective. But everything makes sense only if and when he agrees with them.
God, I guess every guy I've ever known has gone through that phase of his life, usally around age twenty-one until twenty-four or thirty-five-ish... haha myself included. Where he (or I) couldn't help but to impose my viewpoint on everyone around me. And anyone who disagrees is a Philistine. I couldn't help to relate and maybe that's what makes Daniels' portrayal so brilliant, but at the same time, and maybe this where he lost the Oscar, you can't bring yourself to like him in any way. I felt myself repeatedly disappointed by this man in his unfailing need to serve himself, and consequently, warp his oldest son, you can almost sense that hammer falling repeatedly as he shapes a clone in his liking. So is this a way of saying, folks this is not the way to do things? And isn't that the liberal stance on child rearing. Lead by poor example if you must, just for the sake of showing your children how not to live. Only the children who attempt to avoid following in their parents footsteps only fail to find the tread that's never been posited before them.
I only had that experience for a few years in my own life. Maybe the fact that my parents were mostly not open, until maybe the last two years or so, keeps me from "appreciating" this movie as a "worthwhile, must-see" type of movie. If you didn't see it, haven't see it, don't worry too utterly much. It has the ring of a Royal Tannenbaums type production and the characters are in fact, drawn thoroughly and probably realized even beyond the script. It's just that they don't meet in the right places at the middle to give you any good feeling about any of them, except a sorry feeling for anyone whose lives they should happen to touch. At least, Royal Tannenbaums managed to be funny to the point where we could make jokes about them after the show-glow had worn off. Here, I think we mostly marvel at how pathetic they have allowed themselves to be toward each other. How afoul they've run from their own briefly-lived intentions. But take that with a grain of salt. I've just recently seen Jarhead and Capote, two efforts that hit their mark with an almost senior precision. Two movies that managed exactly what they set out for, and no one could ask for anything else from. Maybe I'll watch Squid & the Whale again someday from a different perspective and gaiin that appreciation I desired. Until then, it's just another pretensious effort which will probably drift into video store obscurity.
The only thing I could really report within the last week was my viewing of The Squid & the Whale. A movie for which I had high hopes, only because I knew it didn't really get anywhere with the Oscars. Not like the heavy hitters, Crash, Syriana, Capote, Walk the Line, Brokeback.
So I saw this movie with the anxiety that it might be that sleeper hit that made it through the cracks. But instead, I came away feeling as if here was another movie that I could have left on the shelf. Maybe that's too much of a gut reaction. But I watch a lot of the HBO series with their no holds barred approach to the modern questions of interpersonal ethics, and I wonder how much of the dialogue is meant to be commentary, and how much of the remainder is nothing but intellectual shock manipulation. Like people need to see parents explaining to their children why they had an affair, and then blaming themselves for the dissolution of their children's behavior.
I mean, okay, we get it. Society is forever a continuing anecdote for human being's unceasing ability to behave poorly. And maybe the documenting thereof is healthy. Parents, in a general sense, have certainly begun to allow their children free rein with how to act in the name of "learning themselves." The youngest of the pair was Frank at age ten-eleven, completely unravelling from the effects of his mother and father constantly using each other and their children in unsavory attempts to get back at each other.
I know there are men out there as cold and self-serving as Jeff Daniels' Bernard. Maybe that's what unsettles me entirely about his character. Mostly since I think men like that are ridiculous, and Noah Baumberg said in his "commentary" that he intended for that character to be unwavering in his rigid arrogance. You want him to relent in some way. Maybe see it from someone else's perspective. But everything makes sense only if and when he agrees with them.
God, I guess every guy I've ever known has gone through that phase of his life, usally around age twenty-one until twenty-four or thirty-five-ish... haha myself included. Where he (or I) couldn't help but to impose my viewpoint on everyone around me. And anyone who disagrees is a Philistine. I couldn't help to relate and maybe that's what makes Daniels' portrayal so brilliant, but at the same time, and maybe this where he lost the Oscar, you can't bring yourself to like him in any way. I felt myself repeatedly disappointed by this man in his unfailing need to serve himself, and consequently, warp his oldest son, you can almost sense that hammer falling repeatedly as he shapes a clone in his liking. So is this a way of saying, folks this is not the way to do things? And isn't that the liberal stance on child rearing. Lead by poor example if you must, just for the sake of showing your children how not to live. Only the children who attempt to avoid following in their parents footsteps only fail to find the tread that's never been posited before them.
I only had that experience for a few years in my own life. Maybe the fact that my parents were mostly not open, until maybe the last two years or so, keeps me from "appreciating" this movie as a "worthwhile, must-see" type of movie. If you didn't see it, haven't see it, don't worry too utterly much. It has the ring of a Royal Tannenbaums type production and the characters are in fact, drawn thoroughly and probably realized even beyond the script. It's just that they don't meet in the right places at the middle to give you any good feeling about any of them, except a sorry feeling for anyone whose lives they should happen to touch. At least, Royal Tannenbaums managed to be funny to the point where we could make jokes about them after the show-glow had worn off. Here, I think we mostly marvel at how pathetic they have allowed themselves to be toward each other. How afoul they've run from their own briefly-lived intentions. But take that with a grain of salt. I've just recently seen Jarhead and Capote, two efforts that hit their mark with an almost senior precision. Two movies that managed exactly what they set out for, and no one could ask for anything else from. Maybe I'll watch Squid & the Whale again someday from a different perspective and gaiin that appreciation I desired. Until then, it's just another pretensious effort which will probably drift into video store obscurity.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
A few things weighed on mind the last couple days. The last of which--today--came up from a magazine my girlfriend bought at the store, the latest copy of The Nation which had the article on the controvresy over My Name is Rachel Corrie. This is a play about a girl who had gotten crushed by a bulldozer operated by soldiers in the Israeli Army. It seemed strange that they had composed a play using her emails, journal entries because the play seems like such a strange forum for such an incident as this. Apparently, the play has been produced in London and has had a great deal of circulation there, but has been posponed "indefinitely" in New York. If anyone wants to know the full story about this girl, they can either google cahiers de corey or simply go to racehlswords.com. What lies there is a memorialization to a girl, I mean 23-years old woman, who had an adamant belief about what she was doing, and a strong desire to make a difference in a way that so few people get to. I mean, I went to college, and occasionally attended conferences and forums about peace and justice in the world, but ultimately, I have always felt like I fell short in the arena of actively contributing to the injustices of the world.
I often felt as if there was little I could do, or else, was only participating in the most passive ways to situations abroad or at home. I certainly never joined Habitat for Humanity and only signed a petition or two for Amnesty Interntl, and then received pamphlets ever after regarding symposiums or conferences which I never found an interest to attend. I thought it cold and calculating if I ever did. Depressing. Reactionary. Simply didn't want to be deemed a prostylitizer or something along those lines.
I just went to the rachelswords website and was inspired ? by what I found there. Mostly because there is a girl who's way up there on the Maslow hierarchy or Erikson's eight stages of development. This is a girl who must of been heavily exposed to Gandhi-like ideas, and she just stayed there, lived there most of her short life. That she wanted to be dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends, etc. but that the kind of world that the people in the Middle East have to live in just simply needs to change. That the injustice should stop. There's a well there and I think people realize that. It's not that she died in vain. But that she died with a whole legacy untold of yet. Why? Because so many people die in similar causes and go unsung, and they are the dispossessed, and are so because they recognize so many who are similarly dispossessed. Just that simple recognition in a human being. realizing the simple, innumerable freedoms they have, and that there are so many who go without, only because they were born into families, into whole other worlds than our own. I don't think a girl like this wants to curse the world she is born into, but simply wants to see that this world, this planet is an equal opportunity lender. I think she sees the world from a wholly different perspective than what we are used to, the angle we're slinging.
I guess I got more interested in the Israel-Palestine situation as a result of a convergence of a few different news items. I am not a political person, but I subscribed to Harpers in college, mostly as a trickle down from reading it for the essay form. I loved the essay form, and still do, simply because it allows us to explore our beliefs about the information we gather through the world. In any case, to say I'm not political may be a bit misinformed. Some of us just don't delve that deeply into the world of politics as others. Yet, I found myself experiencing a deep sense of reverence upon my last couple trips to Washington DC, that there could actually still be something sacred about the constructs of government. At any rate, no more digression...
The Israeli-Palestine problem continues to be an elusive matter for me. I have done my best to read up on the matter, the major players, why the Gaza seems to be the cause of years of dispute? Being from the United States, in the modern era, a disenfranchised Catholic, despite twelve years (including college) of religious background, I am at pains to understand the importance of the occupation of land. The Jews against the Muslims, the Muslims against the Jews, and basically we don't want you in our backyard. Same as the Hazaras and the Pushtans in Afghanistans... Correct me if I am wrong, but this goes back to David and Goliath in a sense, does it not? Or even whether Abraham was the father of all human civilzation.
My point earlier, the United States, despite the childhood admission of the allegiance to the flag, has no sense of allegiance that's worth dying over. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves. Sure, we're Yankee fans, Red Sox fans, Broncos, Raiders, Nascar fanatics, maybe even Cadillac men and women, occasionally feminsts and vegetarians. We express our individualities, and even proclaimn ouselves as white supremacists, Christian coelites or abortion/pro-rights activists. We get behind causes or teams, but most of us don't need to fight over land. We're not constantly having to move every five days because the border has changed. Since it became an annexation in 1845, Texas is pretty much the Texas it was back then. Better yet, and more precisely, San Antonio is pretty much going to stay San Antonio for the next couple of months.
And not a gun will need to be drawn to keep that a constant. We in Omaha do think a little different, at least the papers allow us to. Because there are small towns in the surrounding areas that are in jeopardy to be annexed by the great city metro proper. There may be some pissing and ranting about that. The towns may get a little feisty at council meetings and folks get upset, but car bombs aren't going off. The national guard is not coming in on this one. They argue in side, loudly but by definition, peacefully.
Then, you have Hamas, with their green flags and their chanting and parading. People are firing weapons into the sky for celebration. We don't get it, because it's just not how business is done in America. But there's simply a need to break down that veil of ignorance, the shroud of awareness. That this is a big big world we're in outside of what we're usually moaning and groaning about. It would just be nice to open that dialogue a little more often, and keep that line to the outside world humming just a little more frequently. I work for an international company with clients who move and operate throughout the globe. They travel in and through areas which should be of concern. While they're in the job, they may be acutely aware of such things. They know it has happened, that it could happen that they are rendered helpless against the elements of hostile regimes. But it is never entirely the American's concern because they have a sense of destiny in which bad things happen to civilized people. They want the seat on the airplane closest to the front. They want the low-fat meal on the plane. They want the exit row to afford more leg room. They expect that "you can just make that happen." "Are we all finished here?" "Are we good now?" Israel Palestine , the Iraqi insurgence is just something you read about in USA Today in the airport or in the break room. It may even make it to your couch as you watch the evening news over meatloaf. It is a situation, an occurrence. Unless you can break it down, unless there's people involved. Not people like you and me, no, they're lives are hanging in the balance. They may work for a living, but not if they're homes are uprooted, their lives overturned, inconvenienced, placed in a state of shock and realignment.
They are like you and me, in every respect, except for out of what bodies they were born, onto which earth they fell. We could say, tough break. Which is what would be most easy to say, Wec ould just change the channel. We could completely shut it off, forget about it. Relax with our thoughts or the new Julia Louise Dreyfus comedy coming out. That fucked up Bill Paxton show on HBO about the Mormon family with three wives. My thinking is just this-- there's just not enough drive to stay plugged in to realities of the world. If nothing else, just knowing whats happening beyond your front porch, beyonf the city limits, out there, over yonder, across those two big ass oceans, in those continents that outnumber us 4 billion to less than 1 billion. It was the cradle of civilization until we just into a few ships and tried to sail around the world. Then we got stuck here. And we've been stuck here ever since.
I often felt as if there was little I could do, or else, was only participating in the most passive ways to situations abroad or at home. I certainly never joined Habitat for Humanity and only signed a petition or two for Amnesty Interntl, and then received pamphlets ever after regarding symposiums or conferences which I never found an interest to attend. I thought it cold and calculating if I ever did. Depressing. Reactionary. Simply didn't want to be deemed a prostylitizer or something along those lines.
I just went to the rachelswords website and was inspired ? by what I found there. Mostly because there is a girl who's way up there on the Maslow hierarchy or Erikson's eight stages of development. This is a girl who must of been heavily exposed to Gandhi-like ideas, and she just stayed there, lived there most of her short life. That she wanted to be dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends, etc. but that the kind of world that the people in the Middle East have to live in just simply needs to change. That the injustice should stop. There's a well there and I think people realize that. It's not that she died in vain. But that she died with a whole legacy untold of yet. Why? Because so many people die in similar causes and go unsung, and they are the dispossessed, and are so because they recognize so many who are similarly dispossessed. Just that simple recognition in a human being. realizing the simple, innumerable freedoms they have, and that there are so many who go without, only because they were born into families, into whole other worlds than our own. I don't think a girl like this wants to curse the world she is born into, but simply wants to see that this world, this planet is an equal opportunity lender. I think she sees the world from a wholly different perspective than what we are used to, the angle we're slinging.
I guess I got more interested in the Israel-Palestine situation as a result of a convergence of a few different news items. I am not a political person, but I subscribed to Harpers in college, mostly as a trickle down from reading it for the essay form. I loved the essay form, and still do, simply because it allows us to explore our beliefs about the information we gather through the world. In any case, to say I'm not political may be a bit misinformed. Some of us just don't delve that deeply into the world of politics as others. Yet, I found myself experiencing a deep sense of reverence upon my last couple trips to Washington DC, that there could actually still be something sacred about the constructs of government. At any rate, no more digression...
The Israeli-Palestine problem continues to be an elusive matter for me. I have done my best to read up on the matter, the major players, why the Gaza seems to be the cause of years of dispute? Being from the United States, in the modern era, a disenfranchised Catholic, despite twelve years (including college) of religious background, I am at pains to understand the importance of the occupation of land. The Jews against the Muslims, the Muslims against the Jews, and basically we don't want you in our backyard. Same as the Hazaras and the Pushtans in Afghanistans... Correct me if I am wrong, but this goes back to David and Goliath in a sense, does it not? Or even whether Abraham was the father of all human civilzation.
My point earlier, the United States, despite the childhood admission of the allegiance to the flag, has no sense of allegiance that's worth dying over. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves. Sure, we're Yankee fans, Red Sox fans, Broncos, Raiders, Nascar fanatics, maybe even Cadillac men and women, occasionally feminsts and vegetarians. We express our individualities, and even proclaimn ouselves as white supremacists, Christian coelites or abortion/pro-rights activists. We get behind causes or teams, but most of us don't need to fight over land. We're not constantly having to move every five days because the border has changed. Since it became an annexation in 1845, Texas is pretty much the Texas it was back then. Better yet, and more precisely, San Antonio is pretty much going to stay San Antonio for the next couple of months.
And not a gun will need to be drawn to keep that a constant. We in Omaha do think a little different, at least the papers allow us to. Because there are small towns in the surrounding areas that are in jeopardy to be annexed by the great city metro proper. There may be some pissing and ranting about that. The towns may get a little feisty at council meetings and folks get upset, but car bombs aren't going off. The national guard is not coming in on this one. They argue in side, loudly but by definition, peacefully.
Then, you have Hamas, with their green flags and their chanting and parading. People are firing weapons into the sky for celebration. We don't get it, because it's just not how business is done in America. But there's simply a need to break down that veil of ignorance, the shroud of awareness. That this is a big big world we're in outside of what we're usually moaning and groaning about. It would just be nice to open that dialogue a little more often, and keep that line to the outside world humming just a little more frequently. I work for an international company with clients who move and operate throughout the globe. They travel in and through areas which should be of concern. While they're in the job, they may be acutely aware of such things. They know it has happened, that it could happen that they are rendered helpless against the elements of hostile regimes. But it is never entirely the American's concern because they have a sense of destiny in which bad things happen to civilized people. They want the seat on the airplane closest to the front. They want the low-fat meal on the plane. They want the exit row to afford more leg room. They expect that "you can just make that happen." "Are we all finished here?" "Are we good now?" Israel Palestine , the Iraqi insurgence is just something you read about in USA Today in the airport or in the break room. It may even make it to your couch as you watch the evening news over meatloaf. It is a situation, an occurrence. Unless you can break it down, unless there's people involved. Not people like you and me, no, they're lives are hanging in the balance. They may work for a living, but not if they're homes are uprooted, their lives overturned, inconvenienced, placed in a state of shock and realignment.
They are like you and me, in every respect, except for out of what bodies they were born, onto which earth they fell. We could say, tough break. Which is what would be most easy to say, Wec ould just change the channel. We could completely shut it off, forget about it. Relax with our thoughts or the new Julia Louise Dreyfus comedy coming out. That fucked up Bill Paxton show on HBO about the Mormon family with three wives. My thinking is just this-- there's just not enough drive to stay plugged in to realities of the world. If nothing else, just knowing whats happening beyond your front porch, beyonf the city limits, out there, over yonder, across those two big ass oceans, in those continents that outnumber us 4 billion to less than 1 billion. It was the cradle of civilization until we just into a few ships and tried to sail around the world. Then we got stuck here. And we've been stuck here ever since.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The February 21st Post may have been a little harsh... the whole revolution for the sake of revolution seems like a misplayed scenario. What do I do every day after all? I put people on planes. Take them off planes. Put them in overly priced hotels. Take them out of those hotels. Place them in seats. Make sure it's an aisle or your ass gets chewed off. Give them a car I couldn't afford to drive to wheel around in for a couple of days. Get them home to their wives. OR cats. Sometimes I can't get them home fast enough. Sometimes I want to tell them to go to hell, put on a plane to Bangladesh, maybe then they'll shut up. Sometimes I can't stand it. I went to college too. I just didn't master in business. Instead, I'm stuck with a crappy English degree. A lot of knowledge about the Romantic poets. Coleridge's dilaudinum habit. His tuberculosis. Etheridge Knight, Mass Media & Modern Culture. Reflections on the gender politics of the Gillette razor. I realize I was a person once. Maybe people even regarded me in a such a manner. I fight the powers that be, occasionally, but often lose. It's a tug-of-war throughout the week. My bosses--- there are two of them--- and they rarely come over and talk to me, haven't caught on to the fact that I can be downright argumentative in certain circumstances. I can't always get a grasp on what people are asking for, or what they're up to anyhow. So, I disagree with them. I think they're being childish or rude. Sometimes they are, but I've learn that big business motto, that the customer is always right. You're not supposed to argue period. My roommate tells me I have to learn to not give a f*#@k , something which only makes vague sense to me. What am I supposed to develop an indifference toward. Other people's words, their commands. What if you just don't know how to do what they're asking? What if you've entirely lost them in the syntax? There I go, being argumentative again. Just don't be a s:%thead and I'll mostly get along with you.
But it's not a winning attitude I've taken on. I've resorted to reading Buddhist reflections on Anger and Peaceful Acceptance. There seems to be great pain involved in that level of acceptance. Of giving up what you have learned or have interpreted for the truth, for some other plan that has been mapped out. People are getting away with that on a constant basis, I think. Just not giving in to the madness. Not taking it personally. Letting go of the self to discover the self, as priest I knew once said. It's the kind of thing so many people can give advice about, but yet so difficult to put into practice. Especially when you're not disposed to it. I love my old man dearly, but I learned a lot of behavior from practicing what he does, just blows an absolute gasket sometimes, cuts you up from the underside with a snide remark. It's in the genes, they say. Maybe. But there has to be a way to break the cycle.
I've taken to blogging this evening because I thought maybe it might make a difference, this cynicism that's grown into me like a cyst. That you shouldn't let people cut you up. I still don't think you should but how many people have I known and heard say how when you react, you let them win. It's never felt like a win just by being passive. They don't seem satisfied. I've even had people say, "are you still THERE?" which seems to suggest that they are attempting to drive me away, or rock me down to their level, where I say, son, you bet I'm still here, and by god, I'm entitled to be. Like that declaration alone will validate my existence. What a cobweb.
I'm going to work on it, because my former MO was to whimper and cry and overmedicate myself when I got home by playing video games all night in my room. Blotto myself. Rock the brain into a coma. But that doesn't work for me. Great, if it works for you. It's always been more in order to channel all this crap. Welcome to this Channel, thank you all, I'll be in town all week!
But it's not a winning attitude I've taken on. I've resorted to reading Buddhist reflections on Anger and Peaceful Acceptance. There seems to be great pain involved in that level of acceptance. Of giving up what you have learned or have interpreted for the truth, for some other plan that has been mapped out. People are getting away with that on a constant basis, I think. Just not giving in to the madness. Not taking it personally. Letting go of the self to discover the self, as priest I knew once said. It's the kind of thing so many people can give advice about, but yet so difficult to put into practice. Especially when you're not disposed to it. I love my old man dearly, but I learned a lot of behavior from practicing what he does, just blows an absolute gasket sometimes, cuts you up from the underside with a snide remark. It's in the genes, they say. Maybe. But there has to be a way to break the cycle.
I've taken to blogging this evening because I thought maybe it might make a difference, this cynicism that's grown into me like a cyst. That you shouldn't let people cut you up. I still don't think you should but how many people have I known and heard say how when you react, you let them win. It's never felt like a win just by being passive. They don't seem satisfied. I've even had people say, "are you still THERE?" which seems to suggest that they are attempting to drive me away, or rock me down to their level, where I say, son, you bet I'm still here, and by god, I'm entitled to be. Like that declaration alone will validate my existence. What a cobweb.
I'm going to work on it, because my former MO was to whimper and cry and overmedicate myself when I got home by playing video games all night in my room. Blotto myself. Rock the brain into a coma. But that doesn't work for me. Great, if it works for you. It's always been more in order to channel all this crap. Welcome to this Channel, thank you all, I'll be in town all week!
entropy.
Such as dancing the tarantella
With your lover and tripping
Over your heels which
Smash her birthday gift;
Or feeling the terse breeze
Of an electric fan
And mistaking the shadows
For an evening under
A Managua heat & gunfire;
Such as misnaming your firstborn
For the Cuban general
Last castrated by Communist sympathizers;
Or such as, losing enough grace
So as to drag the electric
Fan with you into the bathtub;
Or your wish to remove
Your mirrors from the premises &
Biting your lip at the urge to
Give practice lectures to
the stranger watching from the walls.
Or such as this sleeplessness again,
Which wakes the neighbors,
All the windows propped open,
Because you are freezing anyway;
Thirteen below, the weatherman
Shivered and smiled saying this;
He wears a suit and tie that you
Decided you could not afford purchasing.
Such as the clock ignoring
Your need for a fresh start,
The savage children who will
Eat you alive again.
Such as rubbing your forehead,
Palms sweaty, tremorous, condensation
On the martini glass, and you
Wouldn’t be doing this again,
If you could afford paying back the loans.
Such as abandoning your car in traffic,
Dry-heaving in the bushes,
While drivers gawk at the red light.
Such as explaining your unbalance
To the psychiatrist, covering
Your ears to drown out the nonsense
Of the last few months which the death
Of a loved one might explain.
Such as the grey shapes above your
Closet or just outside your window,
Which are ghosts of your procrastination,
Which are thank-you letters unsent.
Which is ruthlessly needling you,
Wishing for a cocktail to guide
Through the evening news, which is
The man at work always inviting
You to happy hour across town.
Which has medical advice for the remedy,
And whose name you keep changing,
Which is costing you your wages,
Which you have never pegged w/ your finger.
Which is the drawn bow of your
Everyday panic, which in your mind,
Has drawn you indoors, placing
A peephole so you know who is calling,
With your caller id you feel safer,
Which has you worthlessly attending
To menial labor, so its summons
Won’t rap so loud, you ignore its
Knowing insinuations, its vicious poetry
Working on your last nerve
This side of you raging through the city
Blood pouring from your ravaged heart.
Such as dancing the tarantella
With your lover and tripping
Over your heels which
Smash her birthday gift;
Or feeling the terse breeze
Of an electric fan
And mistaking the shadows
For an evening under
A Managua heat & gunfire;
Such as misnaming your firstborn
For the Cuban general
Last castrated by Communist sympathizers;
Or such as, losing enough grace
So as to drag the electric
Fan with you into the bathtub;
Or your wish to remove
Your mirrors from the premises &
Biting your lip at the urge to
Give practice lectures to
the stranger watching from the walls.
Or such as this sleeplessness again,
Which wakes the neighbors,
All the windows propped open,
Because you are freezing anyway;
Thirteen below, the weatherman
Shivered and smiled saying this;
He wears a suit and tie that you
Decided you could not afford purchasing.
Such as the clock ignoring
Your need for a fresh start,
The savage children who will
Eat you alive again.
Such as rubbing your forehead,
Palms sweaty, tremorous, condensation
On the martini glass, and you
Wouldn’t be doing this again,
If you could afford paying back the loans.
Such as abandoning your car in traffic,
Dry-heaving in the bushes,
While drivers gawk at the red light.
Such as explaining your unbalance
To the psychiatrist, covering
Your ears to drown out the nonsense
Of the last few months which the death
Of a loved one might explain.
Such as the grey shapes above your
Closet or just outside your window,
Which are ghosts of your procrastination,
Which are thank-you letters unsent.
Which is ruthlessly needling you,
Wishing for a cocktail to guide
Through the evening news, which is
The man at work always inviting
You to happy hour across town.
Which has medical advice for the remedy,
And whose name you keep changing,
Which is costing you your wages,
Which you have never pegged w/ your finger.
Which is the drawn bow of your
Everyday panic, which in your mind,
Has drawn you indoors, placing
A peephole so you know who is calling,
With your caller id you feel safer,
Which has you worthlessly attending
To menial labor, so its summons
Won’t rap so loud, you ignore its
Knowing insinuations, its vicious poetry
Working on your last nerve
This side of you raging through the city
Blood pouring from your ravaged heart.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
what are we doing revolution-wise?
or is the goal to go zig-zagging into the anonymous dream?
are we waiting for walk the line to arrive on DVD,
live our quiet lives vicariously through an actor playing a legend?
are we waiting for the next super bowl, keeping drinks on ice
and a pantry full of salsa and tortilla chips?
what have you done revolution-wise? other than telling the boss
to stick it, stuff your pockets full of lotto tickets,
and clench your fist while shuffling into the unemployment office?
last I checked, we got a curveball in the white house,
been there for the greater part of the decade, writing his own laws,
signing his own tickets, while his buddies get rich, richer
and the oil fields over there get hot, hot, hotter from the rising fires
and the academics get brainier, the drunks get drunker
and the methheads get empty in the head, in the skin, in the teeth,
you would think there would be someone raging at that,
some wild-haired gent or lass just seething at the audacity of all that:
fill in your blanks, folks, when was the last time the stars
danced for you, when you could get outside of the nine-to-five,
banned food day, boycotted happy hour at the seventh heaven
or drudged up a charity fund to get some of the negativity, the cobwebs
out of your just-trying-to-make-it-to-four-thirty frame-of-mind
it doesn't have to be cranky, you don't have to smash equipment,
but necessary, don't you think, called-for wouldn't you say?
let's not forget how we might get revolution-wise, open up the conversation,
breathe the real air, not the kind that's blowing by on the tv screen,
where we're captive, strapped to the chair, our eyes held open
by steel wires, where we're screaming inside, our mouths sealed shut,
alone, thinking, getting it, with no one to tell, with every chance to forget,
because we think we're dreaming after all, anonymously dreaming,
of being on film, changed and beautiful, wishing we could act revolution-wise.
or is the goal to go zig-zagging into the anonymous dream?
are we waiting for walk the line to arrive on DVD,
live our quiet lives vicariously through an actor playing a legend?
are we waiting for the next super bowl, keeping drinks on ice
and a pantry full of salsa and tortilla chips?
what have you done revolution-wise? other than telling the boss
to stick it, stuff your pockets full of lotto tickets,
and clench your fist while shuffling into the unemployment office?
last I checked, we got a curveball in the white house,
been there for the greater part of the decade, writing his own laws,
signing his own tickets, while his buddies get rich, richer
and the oil fields over there get hot, hot, hotter from the rising fires
and the academics get brainier, the drunks get drunker
and the methheads get empty in the head, in the skin, in the teeth,
you would think there would be someone raging at that,
some wild-haired gent or lass just seething at the audacity of all that:
fill in your blanks, folks, when was the last time the stars
danced for you, when you could get outside of the nine-to-five,
banned food day, boycotted happy hour at the seventh heaven
or drudged up a charity fund to get some of the negativity, the cobwebs
out of your just-trying-to-make-it-to-four-thirty frame-of-mind
it doesn't have to be cranky, you don't have to smash equipment,
but necessary, don't you think, called-for wouldn't you say?
let's not forget how we might get revolution-wise, open up the conversation,
breathe the real air, not the kind that's blowing by on the tv screen,
where we're captive, strapped to the chair, our eyes held open
by steel wires, where we're screaming inside, our mouths sealed shut,
alone, thinking, getting it, with no one to tell, with every chance to forget,
because we think we're dreaming after all, anonymously dreaming,
of being on film, changed and beautiful, wishing we could act revolution-wise.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Listening to a little Vic Chesnutt tonight but I've been meaning to start this thing for whatever it's worth...
in no particular order...
Field Work in Ash & Blue
I left all my thoughts on Leavenworth Street
That lazy avenue always crying under the wet tarp:
For its anonymity, for the cracked-up eyes lingering
on its curbstones, which wonder where you've been lately
and who you're fucking at night while your children sleep;
that name synonymous with jails and private card games:
a legacy for the hustle, food stamps and warm dry gin,
But that was only where it began, the fat artery out of which
Blood then & now had been flowing: not blood for the nightly
news or the photos on the inner lining of the wraps, but
the scuffle just down the side streets, under dark awnings
and yards of cardboard glass, to be hidden from the neighbors
But known like the cheat in a spread: not a dime that drops
there is worth its keep, yet I dared nightly to dream
while my engine idled in the sad corners of its parking lots.
I held a fare uptown with a woman who danced for men
for twenty-five years, every night, I carried her twenty blocks
east and four south, and she spread her hair along the backseat,
as if somehow that would break the mystery of her shroud
as if men must live through such seductions to keep their namesake,
and survive the smoke as it curls from lips, and smile but look
the other way, no matter how lonely they've become
by the end of the day, no matter what the cost of the bear & bait,
as if anyone could fend off her silky advances & flip down the nightshade,
then slide away to sleep with clockstroke & cool antacid.
I seemed to be outlasting all the wretches, for no other reason
than to scratch together a few dimes, run back to the garage
to punch my card & rendevous to my nearest base of asylum,
without any kin to take me, the last remaining namesake this end
of the Missouri River, with the want of a nail for my kingdom lost,
just a witness in this field of spinning ash & blue, skinless around
the scalp & faceless like so many of these corners, long shots
to a ticket elsewhere, stunned in the midst of the anonymity
of every stranger and their crazed introductions, their demands,
their alibis, their aliases and wigs: beneath their cover, I am offered
these in confidence, should I contact someone who shouldn't hear the news.
In this vein, I took it all in stride, a nightly parade through this
cowering alley, old Leavenworth, ashen in winter, muddied by spring,
so that with summer, I left all my thoughts in the bus stations,
in the alleys, and at the girlie bars, in the fag dens, with the marquis'
with the spinsters, with this street and all its drinking buddies,
with its poker friends, its bartenders, its bookies, its shrinks,
with its Indian chiefs, all pass off and left in the notebooks, painted
lily white, all new and fresh on the clapboards, a new print for its sheets,
lying in a dress of satin, glimmer and found clean like so many other
passing streets, in other seasons, towns of intrigue, fools who wander
from the painful strain of hidden mistakes, streets washed over by ash & blue.
I really have to rework some of the images on this one, never one of my stronger pieces.
There's stuff I like about it but ahh, whatver. I can always improve of some of these pieces.
I don't hang out on Leavenworth Street in Omaha, NE very much anymore.
I don't have the time nor the wherewithal. I guess it's probably no worse than Broadway
in Council Bluffs, and a far cry from the Bowery in New York, or other places I've been in Baltimore or DC, but it's worth a nod. I'm always game for hearing about the places that never sleep, like the Strip in Vegas ir whathaveyou.
in no particular order...
Field Work in Ash & Blue
I left all my thoughts on Leavenworth Street
That lazy avenue always crying under the wet tarp:
For its anonymity, for the cracked-up eyes lingering
on its curbstones, which wonder where you've been lately
and who you're fucking at night while your children sleep;
that name synonymous with jails and private card games:
a legacy for the hustle, food stamps and warm dry gin,
But that was only where it began, the fat artery out of which
Blood then & now had been flowing: not blood for the nightly
news or the photos on the inner lining of the wraps, but
the scuffle just down the side streets, under dark awnings
and yards of cardboard glass, to be hidden from the neighbors
But known like the cheat in a spread: not a dime that drops
there is worth its keep, yet I dared nightly to dream
while my engine idled in the sad corners of its parking lots.
I held a fare uptown with a woman who danced for men
for twenty-five years, every night, I carried her twenty blocks
east and four south, and she spread her hair along the backseat,
as if somehow that would break the mystery of her shroud
as if men must live through such seductions to keep their namesake,
and survive the smoke as it curls from lips, and smile but look
the other way, no matter how lonely they've become
by the end of the day, no matter what the cost of the bear & bait,
as if anyone could fend off her silky advances & flip down the nightshade,
then slide away to sleep with clockstroke & cool antacid.
I seemed to be outlasting all the wretches, for no other reason
than to scratch together a few dimes, run back to the garage
to punch my card & rendevous to my nearest base of asylum,
without any kin to take me, the last remaining namesake this end
of the Missouri River, with the want of a nail for my kingdom lost,
just a witness in this field of spinning ash & blue, skinless around
the scalp & faceless like so many of these corners, long shots
to a ticket elsewhere, stunned in the midst of the anonymity
of every stranger and their crazed introductions, their demands,
their alibis, their aliases and wigs: beneath their cover, I am offered
these in confidence, should I contact someone who shouldn't hear the news.
In this vein, I took it all in stride, a nightly parade through this
cowering alley, old Leavenworth, ashen in winter, muddied by spring,
so that with summer, I left all my thoughts in the bus stations,
in the alleys, and at the girlie bars, in the fag dens, with the marquis'
with the spinsters, with this street and all its drinking buddies,
with its poker friends, its bartenders, its bookies, its shrinks,
with its Indian chiefs, all pass off and left in the notebooks, painted
lily white, all new and fresh on the clapboards, a new print for its sheets,
lying in a dress of satin, glimmer and found clean like so many other
passing streets, in other seasons, towns of intrigue, fools who wander
from the painful strain of hidden mistakes, streets washed over by ash & blue.
I really have to rework some of the images on this one, never one of my stronger pieces.
There's stuff I like about it but ahh, whatver. I can always improve of some of these pieces.
I don't hang out on Leavenworth Street in Omaha, NE very much anymore.
I don't have the time nor the wherewithal. I guess it's probably no worse than Broadway
in Council Bluffs, and a far cry from the Bowery in New York, or other places I've been in Baltimore or DC, but it's worth a nod. I'm always game for hearing about the places that never sleep, like the Strip in Vegas ir whathaveyou.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Boulevard Review under new owenership
I had to restart this discussion mostly because I had some life-changing circumstances that amounted in the loss of my e-mail addresses. YOu don't use the account and apparently, they sweep it out from under you. They need the web space I guess. But I'm back, as much as I can be for now... I was writing a little bit about movies, the communal experience they create, etc.
Something about the movie Constantine which I have now seen both on the big screen and DVD. The big screen was where it made its mark the loudest I think. Unless you have a big screen television (which I don't) the magnamious nature of that film is somewhat subdued by the glass tube.
I wished I could have said something definitive about Good Night and Good Luck, one of the last suckerpunch movies I had the experience of viewing in the theater. I have this feeling that it's not going to get much more than a head nod out there. Mostly, because it's too true to form. It had little to no humor that I can remember, because George Clooney, David Stratham, Richard Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson spent their entire time going right for the jugular. Driving the mechanism forward. You could almost sense the bare bones anchors and pulleys "behind the scenes" were just around the corner. Its intensity held the fort right from the opening scenes.
But I think I need to say something about the chronicling of historical events that Hollywood seems to embrace as parody, political commentary, and the preponderance of the motives the directors hold as justification for releasing just films. Good Night and Good Luck was one such example of this film.
L4yer C4ke w/ Daniel Craig. Just watched this film which now occurs to me as being somewhat over the top, in a way that separates it from Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I didn'tlaugh I think once and I don't imagine its because I had a headache at the time. To me, these movies are, like the style of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, a matter of form over substance. But style is the frame on which a film like this stands. The characters of Morty, Jimmy and Temple are characters which stand out in my mind as definitive. You'll remember Craig because of the hard lines of his chin and cheek bones. The hard edges of his face reflect a familiarity with the likes of Mel Gibson and Steve McQueen. I just heard of Craig a few months ago as the epitome of the new James Bond, but you have to wonder where Hollywood has been keeping him. As a hard character, one with some depth, but mostly the brawn that is required to create a just-under-the-radar kind of icon. I haven't seen the special features on this one yet, and don't know if I really need to. It was an average film, really, just mostly that I haven't really seen a solid one for quite some time, and I thought maybe this one could serve as an outsider.
Honestly, I'm somewhat clueless about how to write about film or cinema and make it sound artful. I'm not saying that I don't have people around me anymore who can talk intelligently about movies. I don't entirely know if and how you do that, other than the fact that there are film journals out there that could get the juices flowing. I have a book that I bought on a whim at one of these chain book stores, Agee on Film, which taught me that someone could be powerfully devoted to "writing about film". I always joked with my father about how we could go into business together, being film analysts,or something in that neighborhood. I still remember watching Bridge on the River Kwai on the Fox Saturday movies. They showed that movie like every week, but the real gist was that I couldn't ask him about a movie that he hadn't seen. That probably goes back into the sixties, and doesn't reach the span and breadth of Agee.
He was writing about every single movie that came out in the late thirties and forties and of course, he probably got them all published in the big newspapers in the country. Seems I can hardly go a week of doing a crossword puzzle without running into his name.
Still my mother was partly responsible for my love of movies, as we used to go to just about every Tuesday matinee during the summer when we grew up, watching greats like The Money Pit, Great Outdoors, Spies Like Us, WarGames, Stargate, Space Camp, Big, The Natural, the list of movies was endless. The older I got the more convoluted the list. Let's face it, once you've seen The Godfather trilogy, GoodFellas, The Killing Fields, Marathon Man, Chinatown, The Two Jakes, The Graduate, Apocalypse Now, Pulp Fiction, Scarface, Four Hundred Blows. Touch of Evil, The Killing or Lolita, your sensibilities about film change dramatically. yet there's so much junk out there too, and I'm not always sure that some of the films I just listed don't fall in to that category.
I have to admit I have an agenda. Might as well just put it out there for all its worth. It's a lofty goal, but not many of my goals are quite as lofty as someday reaching the notice of someone as esteemed as Josh Corey. I was glad the other day that he pointed out a poet named Lilac on his site. A forty-something year old woman from Lebanon ? (you'll see my details are never handy so I go with what I can remember)that travels back and forth between Phoenix and Beirut. What a combination, I mean seems like that stacks the deck in your favor as far as having something to say that hasn't been said. What do I know, though, I was born into white America and have resided there most of my life. I mean, I went to see movies during most of my later teen years, and as anybody knows, spending time in movie theaters doesn't afford you a great deal of color. I'm the guy in the baseball bleachers with the chino pants and the ball cap, sitting underneath the facade to keep from getting sunburned. I'll admit it. Nevertheless, I was classically trained at Creighton University to read and write poems. Four years, I am convinced, is not entirely enough, especially since you have to go through at least two years of core classes before you get to the real grease, that place where all you're doing is reading great poetry and trying to perfect a craft. That was where I wanted to be, where I still like to be.
I heard about Josh Corey and the Cahiers de Corey from a local poet, a guy I have a great deal of respect for on a personal level and as a literal masternmind, Steven Langan. I know he's been in Jacket and Double Take probably among others. I guess I can brag by saying that I knew him before he got published. I also happen to know that's not his main occupation. But I won't go into that, mostly to protect or adhere to something like personal integrity. I could talk about film tonight, but my time is somehwat limited, instead, I plan on creating a poetry blog, at the risk of having my life's work at once scrutinized. But my biggest problem has been getting the written word onto the screen. I still haven't made it into the 21st century as a writer. I have this nice newer model of a laptop, which I have failed to use entirely properly. But I want to get some of this stuff down, so I can look at it. So's other people, should they want to, might see as well.
Something about the movie Constantine which I have now seen both on the big screen and DVD. The big screen was where it made its mark the loudest I think. Unless you have a big screen television (which I don't) the magnamious nature of that film is somewhat subdued by the glass tube.
I wished I could have said something definitive about Good Night and Good Luck, one of the last suckerpunch movies I had the experience of viewing in the theater. I have this feeling that it's not going to get much more than a head nod out there. Mostly, because it's too true to form. It had little to no humor that I can remember, because George Clooney, David Stratham, Richard Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson spent their entire time going right for the jugular. Driving the mechanism forward. You could almost sense the bare bones anchors and pulleys "behind the scenes" were just around the corner. Its intensity held the fort right from the opening scenes.
But I think I need to say something about the chronicling of historical events that Hollywood seems to embrace as parody, political commentary, and the preponderance of the motives the directors hold as justification for releasing just films. Good Night and Good Luck was one such example of this film.
L4yer C4ke w/ Daniel Craig. Just watched this film which now occurs to me as being somewhat over the top, in a way that separates it from Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I didn'tlaugh I think once and I don't imagine its because I had a headache at the time. To me, these movies are, like the style of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, a matter of form over substance. But style is the frame on which a film like this stands. The characters of Morty, Jimmy and Temple are characters which stand out in my mind as definitive. You'll remember Craig because of the hard lines of his chin and cheek bones. The hard edges of his face reflect a familiarity with the likes of Mel Gibson and Steve McQueen. I just heard of Craig a few months ago as the epitome of the new James Bond, but you have to wonder where Hollywood has been keeping him. As a hard character, one with some depth, but mostly the brawn that is required to create a just-under-the-radar kind of icon. I haven't seen the special features on this one yet, and don't know if I really need to. It was an average film, really, just mostly that I haven't really seen a solid one for quite some time, and I thought maybe this one could serve as an outsider.
Honestly, I'm somewhat clueless about how to write about film or cinema and make it sound artful. I'm not saying that I don't have people around me anymore who can talk intelligently about movies. I don't entirely know if and how you do that, other than the fact that there are film journals out there that could get the juices flowing. I have a book that I bought on a whim at one of these chain book stores, Agee on Film, which taught me that someone could be powerfully devoted to "writing about film". I always joked with my father about how we could go into business together, being film analysts,or something in that neighborhood. I still remember watching Bridge on the River Kwai on the Fox Saturday movies. They showed that movie like every week, but the real gist was that I couldn't ask him about a movie that he hadn't seen. That probably goes back into the sixties, and doesn't reach the span and breadth of Agee.
He was writing about every single movie that came out in the late thirties and forties and of course, he probably got them all published in the big newspapers in the country. Seems I can hardly go a week of doing a crossword puzzle without running into his name.
Still my mother was partly responsible for my love of movies, as we used to go to just about every Tuesday matinee during the summer when we grew up, watching greats like The Money Pit, Great Outdoors, Spies Like Us, WarGames, Stargate, Space Camp, Big, The Natural, the list of movies was endless. The older I got the more convoluted the list. Let's face it, once you've seen The Godfather trilogy, GoodFellas, The Killing Fields, Marathon Man, Chinatown, The Two Jakes, The Graduate, Apocalypse Now, Pulp Fiction, Scarface, Four Hundred Blows. Touch of Evil, The Killing or Lolita, your sensibilities about film change dramatically. yet there's so much junk out there too, and I'm not always sure that some of the films I just listed don't fall in to that category.
I have to admit I have an agenda. Might as well just put it out there for all its worth. It's a lofty goal, but not many of my goals are quite as lofty as someday reaching the notice of someone as esteemed as Josh Corey. I was glad the other day that he pointed out a poet named Lilac on his site. A forty-something year old woman from Lebanon ? (you'll see my details are never handy so I go with what I can remember)that travels back and forth between Phoenix and Beirut. What a combination, I mean seems like that stacks the deck in your favor as far as having something to say that hasn't been said. What do I know, though, I was born into white America and have resided there most of my life. I mean, I went to see movies during most of my later teen years, and as anybody knows, spending time in movie theaters doesn't afford you a great deal of color. I'm the guy in the baseball bleachers with the chino pants and the ball cap, sitting underneath the facade to keep from getting sunburned. I'll admit it. Nevertheless, I was classically trained at Creighton University to read and write poems. Four years, I am convinced, is not entirely enough, especially since you have to go through at least two years of core classes before you get to the real grease, that place where all you're doing is reading great poetry and trying to perfect a craft. That was where I wanted to be, where I still like to be.
I heard about Josh Corey and the Cahiers de Corey from a local poet, a guy I have a great deal of respect for on a personal level and as a literal masternmind, Steven Langan. I know he's been in Jacket and Double Take probably among others. I guess I can brag by saying that I knew him before he got published. I also happen to know that's not his main occupation. But I won't go into that, mostly to protect or adhere to something like personal integrity. I could talk about film tonight, but my time is somehwat limited, instead, I plan on creating a poetry blog, at the risk of having my life's work at once scrutinized. But my biggest problem has been getting the written word onto the screen. I still haven't made it into the 21st century as a writer. I have this nice newer model of a laptop, which I have failed to use entirely properly. But I want to get some of this stuff down, so I can look at it. So's other people, should they want to, might see as well.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Quotes from Thompson's Hell's Angels, I think printed without the expressed, written consent...etc etc`You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when it's waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.'`The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic highway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men lie like dogs. There is also a negative side.'`I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone...but they've always worked for me.'`As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.'`For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.'`There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge.'
Posted by: Greg / 9:38 PM
" Because, as full-on, fire-eyed, both-barrels blazing crazy as he could be, Thompson was at bottom an outraged idealist. Otherwise, why be outraged? In Richard Nixon's America particularly, Thompson saw not only the death of the American dream, but the subsequent violation and dismemberment of its corpse. Sure, he was funny, incisive and brilliantly entertaining, but he was also on a dead-serious mission: to rescue America from its worst impulses.And those impulses were crowding in from all sides. Listen to him describing the scene on the streets during the '72 Republican convention in Miami:"With the lone exception of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the demonstrators in Miami were a useless mob of ignorant chicken-shit ego-junkies whose only accomplishment was to embarrass the whole tradition of public protest. They were hopelessly disorganized, they had no real purpose in being there, and about half of them were so wasted on grass, wine and downers that they couldn't say for sure whether they were raising hell in Miami or San Diego."Although forged in the '50s and minted in the '60s, it took the '70s to make popular currency of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Vietnam was grinding on, the Silent Majority was striking back, Clint Eastwood was the world's most popular star and Nixon (Nixon!) was cruising toward a landslide re-election.It was cynicism's high tide, and Thompson surfed it with clenched, sputtering grace. You can park him with journalism if you like, but he seems to fit far more snugly in the period's satirical responses, like National Lampoon, early Saturday Night Live and Animal House.He needed Nixon to really get it up. Nixon was his dark muse, the very manifestation of all that lay darkly beneath the surface of the American swamp, "the main villain of my political consciousness." After Nixon's death, Thompson wrote he was "a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president." He had an "ugly, Nazi spirit." And his body "should have been burned in a trash bin." Excerpts from The Toronto Star article, on Hunter S. Thompson.
Posted by: Greg / 9:32 PM
" Do not mourn for him. He would have none of it. His death is not sad or tragic, premature or pre-emptive. He courted it for years, and must have had days when he was as surprised as we to discover that he was still among the living. He was not a contented man, and we do not remember him now for the sunshine he spread: fear and loathing were the catchphrases by which he made himself memorable. How often he must have looked at his legendary home arsenal and thought the thought." -On Hunter S. Thompson, dead at 67, from The Toronto Star.Never have I really found a celebrity's death so hard to decipher. How should I feel, how shocked should I be. Will anybody even notice after a couple weeks. Had they lived a decent life? But with this one, I was utterly perplexed, only that the storied article in the World Herald, down at the bottom, just big enough to show a recognizable picture, punched me in the gut in the same way that some of Hunter's articles did. I haven't read everything by him, not even close, only bits and pieces of articles hear and there from The Proud Highway and Songs of the Doomed. But always there has been this deep pornographic love affair with his work. I say that because being a believer in the sancitity of the word, one who is content with the glorification of the author in the public psyche (if & when it has occasion to exist) Hunter S Thompson always seemed like cheap pulp that let the reader chew & chew just because the taste was so unmistakably bittersweet. He ranks up somewhere with Baudelaire and Bukowski on the mean & nasty scale, and yet, I've always felt like his work was "something I shouldn't be reading."I don't mean that as judgement. I think if people didn't think his voice was one worth listening to time & again, there wouldn't be so many people who were intrigued by it. And that was the lure. This guy who had done things & said things to people, that you could only dream of saying to those you detest. I remember reading a clip in Harper's from when he ripped the executive producer of the project The Rum Diary, (which has yet to be completed?) and told her what an ass she was making of herself. Explicitly he told her something like that she needed to get the ball rolling or he was going to come down there (on the set) and personally chop her hands off. I mean the balls, the utter ego of a man to carry on like that. And yet, I admit only that I wished to live vicariously through a guy like that. A guy who just bent the rules, past tense, just because there were rules he felt like mishandling. Thompson may very well have paved the way for the society being so enmeshed with a constant thread of counterculture. That there needed to be a variety of opinions, and that they not always follow with the status quo. Say what you will about the incendiary face of media, and the overzealousness of how it pulses & pounds through our television pscyhe, (God forbid we not know what the hell people are thinking about each major event going on in the world (?) America) but it is a milieu, and I'm not so sure it wasn't Thompson that created it. The Daily Show w/ John Stewart, American Idol, The Apprentice, The Osbournes for Christ sake, all because Hunter got on a bike one day, rode the Pacific Highway at ninety-one hundred miles an hour, listening to that crashing tide over the cliffs at Big Sur, and then told us all how goddamn good it felt, to push the limits, to ignore the speed limit, because it could be done. Because it was possible.I like that quote from the Star, because it's how I felt after I had had some sleep, after I had returned to feeling like just an average guy, and not a writer in reflection about the death of another writer. It is like Hemingway, is it not. Thompson seems to have taken the final action on his aesthetic, the aesthetic mattering little unless you carry it out to the last fiber of your being. Those damned existential astronauts, the Hemingway heroes, doomed by the fact of their own existence, and their blatant denial that it should matter one iota, unless it were selfishly, quickly snuffed out with an exclamation point. Checkmate. But I shouldn't mourn, because that would defeat the purpose, the very act & its outcome, saying somehow, it ain't worth it, pal, we 're all gonna go sometime, it just depends on when & how. And I haven't mourned, quite. I just thought about the death of the American Dream, what he ultimately harkened us to in his writing. How it had all just slipped away because we had somewhat lost focus on the prize, stopped caring if it was there, and what the hell can we do about it anyway.Only the spectacle that he was living the American Dream, only the one that had been realized, not the one that had been imagined, laconically, because the collective consciousness had just gone its own separate way. In a lot of ways, when I was young, I might have thought he was living the Dream, out there in the mountains, Aspen, Colorado, having sole property of his own complex, a cult following, probably getting badgered by ex-hippies, college students, idealists, and turning back to his work, calling up lawyers, Congressmen, the hacks at Rolling Stone, Harper's, the tribunes, the heralds, the times, pushing your way to the center of political movements, and having them at least let you say your piece because your that big guy that just won't shut up, and the less they allowed him to say, the more he would attack them, the more he would give him hell. A true Socratic gadfly. A big old pain in the ass, but a necessary one to get soem kind of wheel of democracy moving. Yeah, man, I guess it's all of that. "The only ones who know where the edge is are those who have gone over it." Makes sense, makes perfect sense that someone had to go off the map just so we knew what it was like out there. Just so we knew where the lines were ultimately drawn.
Posted by: Greg / 8:44 PM
Posted by: Greg / 9:38 PM
" Because, as full-on, fire-eyed, both-barrels blazing crazy as he could be, Thompson was at bottom an outraged idealist. Otherwise, why be outraged? In Richard Nixon's America particularly, Thompson saw not only the death of the American dream, but the subsequent violation and dismemberment of its corpse. Sure, he was funny, incisive and brilliantly entertaining, but he was also on a dead-serious mission: to rescue America from its worst impulses.And those impulses were crowding in from all sides. Listen to him describing the scene on the streets during the '72 Republican convention in Miami:"With the lone exception of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the demonstrators in Miami were a useless mob of ignorant chicken-shit ego-junkies whose only accomplishment was to embarrass the whole tradition of public protest. They were hopelessly disorganized, they had no real purpose in being there, and about half of them were so wasted on grass, wine and downers that they couldn't say for sure whether they were raising hell in Miami or San Diego."Although forged in the '50s and minted in the '60s, it took the '70s to make popular currency of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Vietnam was grinding on, the Silent Majority was striking back, Clint Eastwood was the world's most popular star and Nixon (Nixon!) was cruising toward a landslide re-election.It was cynicism's high tide, and Thompson surfed it with clenched, sputtering grace. You can park him with journalism if you like, but he seems to fit far more snugly in the period's satirical responses, like National Lampoon, early Saturday Night Live and Animal House.He needed Nixon to really get it up. Nixon was his dark muse, the very manifestation of all that lay darkly beneath the surface of the American swamp, "the main villain of my political consciousness." After Nixon's death, Thompson wrote he was "a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president." He had an "ugly, Nazi spirit." And his body "should have been burned in a trash bin." Excerpts from The Toronto Star article, on Hunter S. Thompson.
Posted by: Greg / 9:32 PM
" Do not mourn for him. He would have none of it. His death is not sad or tragic, premature or pre-emptive. He courted it for years, and must have had days when he was as surprised as we to discover that he was still among the living. He was not a contented man, and we do not remember him now for the sunshine he spread: fear and loathing were the catchphrases by which he made himself memorable. How often he must have looked at his legendary home arsenal and thought the thought." -On Hunter S. Thompson, dead at 67, from The Toronto Star.Never have I really found a celebrity's death so hard to decipher. How should I feel, how shocked should I be. Will anybody even notice after a couple weeks. Had they lived a decent life? But with this one, I was utterly perplexed, only that the storied article in the World Herald, down at the bottom, just big enough to show a recognizable picture, punched me in the gut in the same way that some of Hunter's articles did. I haven't read everything by him, not even close, only bits and pieces of articles hear and there from The Proud Highway and Songs of the Doomed. But always there has been this deep pornographic love affair with his work. I say that because being a believer in the sancitity of the word, one who is content with the glorification of the author in the public psyche (if & when it has occasion to exist) Hunter S Thompson always seemed like cheap pulp that let the reader chew & chew just because the taste was so unmistakably bittersweet. He ranks up somewhere with Baudelaire and Bukowski on the mean & nasty scale, and yet, I've always felt like his work was "something I shouldn't be reading."I don't mean that as judgement. I think if people didn't think his voice was one worth listening to time & again, there wouldn't be so many people who were intrigued by it. And that was the lure. This guy who had done things & said things to people, that you could only dream of saying to those you detest. I remember reading a clip in Harper's from when he ripped the executive producer of the project The Rum Diary, (which has yet to be completed?) and told her what an ass she was making of herself. Explicitly he told her something like that she needed to get the ball rolling or he was going to come down there (on the set) and personally chop her hands off. I mean the balls, the utter ego of a man to carry on like that. And yet, I admit only that I wished to live vicariously through a guy like that. A guy who just bent the rules, past tense, just because there were rules he felt like mishandling. Thompson may very well have paved the way for the society being so enmeshed with a constant thread of counterculture. That there needed to be a variety of opinions, and that they not always follow with the status quo. Say what you will about the incendiary face of media, and the overzealousness of how it pulses & pounds through our television pscyhe, (God forbid we not know what the hell people are thinking about each major event going on in the world (?) America) but it is a milieu, and I'm not so sure it wasn't Thompson that created it. The Daily Show w/ John Stewart, American Idol, The Apprentice, The Osbournes for Christ sake, all because Hunter got on a bike one day, rode the Pacific Highway at ninety-one hundred miles an hour, listening to that crashing tide over the cliffs at Big Sur, and then told us all how goddamn good it felt, to push the limits, to ignore the speed limit, because it could be done. Because it was possible.I like that quote from the Star, because it's how I felt after I had had some sleep, after I had returned to feeling like just an average guy, and not a writer in reflection about the death of another writer. It is like Hemingway, is it not. Thompson seems to have taken the final action on his aesthetic, the aesthetic mattering little unless you carry it out to the last fiber of your being. Those damned existential astronauts, the Hemingway heroes, doomed by the fact of their own existence, and their blatant denial that it should matter one iota, unless it were selfishly, quickly snuffed out with an exclamation point. Checkmate. But I shouldn't mourn, because that would defeat the purpose, the very act & its outcome, saying somehow, it ain't worth it, pal, we 're all gonna go sometime, it just depends on when & how. And I haven't mourned, quite. I just thought about the death of the American Dream, what he ultimately harkened us to in his writing. How it had all just slipped away because we had somewhat lost focus on the prize, stopped caring if it was there, and what the hell can we do about it anyway.Only the spectacle that he was living the American Dream, only the one that had been realized, not the one that had been imagined, laconically, because the collective consciousness had just gone its own separate way. In a lot of ways, when I was young, I might have thought he was living the Dream, out there in the mountains, Aspen, Colorado, having sole property of his own complex, a cult following, probably getting badgered by ex-hippies, college students, idealists, and turning back to his work, calling up lawyers, Congressmen, the hacks at Rolling Stone, Harper's, the tribunes, the heralds, the times, pushing your way to the center of political movements, and having them at least let you say your piece because your that big guy that just won't shut up, and the less they allowed him to say, the more he would attack them, the more he would give him hell. A true Socratic gadfly. A big old pain in the ass, but a necessary one to get soem kind of wheel of democracy moving. Yeah, man, I guess it's all of that. "The only ones who know where the edge is are those who have gone over it." Makes sense, makes perfect sense that someone had to go off the map just so we knew what it was like out there. Just so we knew where the lines were ultimately drawn.
Posted by: Greg / 8:44 PM
Sunday, September 14, 2003
So despite all this Johnny Cash died on Friday... the best I can say is that I will miss him and his utterly human stature in his later years. To me, Johnny was bigger than Elvis, bigger than Sinatra, Dylan, he was tantamount. Maybe John Wayne himself might have been the only person who was his equal. But there was such a dignity in the last years of his life, each album, each song, each verse showing a man exposed... a man who wanted to portray himself as the toughest guy on the planet, and with the set of his eyes, his postures, you might have believed him... Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk ina midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free. These were Leonard Cohen's words of course, but a deep sincerity looms around them when Johnny sings them. So much apology, so much amendment, that I can't help but believe these last ten years were devoted to repentance, much in the same way the Jews flog themselves and beat their breast at the death of a loved one... like that baggage just had to be dropped... I realize how much life I have left to live through that man, that I haven't even begun to live, as if everything up until now was the dress rehearsal... that somehow to live you tend have to make mistakes and that somewhere there are heartaches innumerable, unfathomable. Not out of necessity, but part of the human condition. But Johnny wore it well, he turned it into something like integrity, admirable despite anything anyone could ever drudge up against him... God rest his soul, God grant him the entrance to the pearly gates of heaven... long live his spirit, here & ever after...
Posted by: Greg / 10:38 PM
Posted by: Greg / 10:38 PM
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Basically, if you think about it, music would seem like worth so much more if I didn't know a bunch of other people weren't getting the same canned preformatted item, frames and all. Basically, when I buy a work of art (if I buy a work of art) I would know that I am carrying the original, which could not be reproduced. Therefore, for the privilege of having seen the piece, having been attracted to it, and then knowing that the artist prodiuced only one like it, I would be willing to pay above $100 for that item. But knowing that 100 other people will pay 16 or 17 bucks for a CD, doesn't the artist already get his money back for the production of it. That's a liberal sum too. No, wait, the record company needs their cut too, huh? Man, those guys seem to be leaving something out aren't they? Man msuicians consider themsleves lucky that they don't really have to work striaght jobs that they make a living doing what they love to do. I'm still scraping for $9.37 an hour to make ends meet and I have reams of poems just dying on the vine and I have that sneaky feeling I'll never really be doing what I love to do. May not ever. Makes me want to quit writing all together actually. I mean hey, I freaking idolize these people you know, I truly do. But I decided that it was enough to pay $40 once to see Bob Dylan ... $20 an hour per person when you have about three or four thousand on one given night. Sorry, Bob but the times they are a-changin', keep trying to get heaven before they close the door. You can probably buy your way if you ask nicely. Actually, I bet true musicians think it's cool if their stuff is getting heard by people who can't afford to buy every one of their albums. Even the dead ones, you know. I mean if you're so shallow that you're in it for the money, and that's it, you're shit is probably not worth hearing anyway, and it'll be only so long before you could only hope people are still dowloading your shit illegally.
Posted by: Greg / 12:41 AM
Lastly, for now, I am incredibly disturbed by the lawsuits for the file-sharers. I am waiting for the hammer to drop here. I mean yeah, I download music but that's it. I listen to it while I'm doing stuff on the computer. I personally have just bought this Bruce album and one by the White Stripes as a direct result of being able to listen to songs on the albums before hand. The file share allows me to listen to hear music that blows me away, and actually, I'm more apt to buy albums because of it. As far as the Record Industry deciding to slap the suits on personally individuals, I have sympthy for people. Maybe they are just shocked that this things actually going down. And I don't blame them. I wonder if I've shared files in the capacity they are scrutinizing. But my major problem with the record industry's stance is that they could begin using the kind of discs that everybody buys in 5-packs for 3.99 at Walmart. Insead, they've used a medium which is pretty cost-efficient for them. They sell one million of them, in some places at mark-ups of $17 or $18; when I used to buy tapes for $10 or $11. No -- places like Border's and even the independent record stores said about cassettes,CD is the wave of the future, everything well be on cd before you know it. And they were right. BUT what about the couple hundreds of dollars I've spent trying to upgrade to better systems, so I can listen to my cd's. Currently, I have about two hundred cd's which I own...so take that and multiply it by 16 or 17 and you have a good three thousand dollars of my money. And I rarely ever batted an eye at it. Sure, I try to get albums on sale, but I ahve spent that money for the pleasure of hearing the music I want. Now let's forget the number of cds and tapes originals that I've sold over the years at only 25% of their initial worth. Because they're lost to me now,, either because I didn't listen to them enough to warrant lugging them wherever I may move. Or maybe I was hard up for cash and thought I could eek out 30 or 40 bucks from some shylock record seller. I have strongly supported the record industry over the years because I had to have the new album... BUT what do I care about a record industry that really doesn't care about musicians, talent, originality, individuality, creativity or the music that comes through it. Right now, I am listening to Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or whatever and don't think I don't know how they made a killing on this album. Cool story about screwing the record industry over and getting to make an individual record. I still paid $15 for the album. Soooo, question, is it the music that seems worth the money or the package it comes in.... I know it is. David Fricke said once that the packaging is just an artifact, a siginifer of the signified which is what is what is contained on the 6 inches of platinum waves" so how do we get past the frivolity of the package and get that treasure we're really after...download!!! Totally. So sue me. I'll pay you in platinum and plastic... I'll give you back all the damn stuff you charged me for... and by the way, I'll make sure I download it all onto my computer first... and I expect to be reimbursed for the price of additional memory it take to do that...
Posted by: Greg / 12:26 AM
So the other night I'm sitting at a neighbor hood bistro and I see a group of four (beautiful) women of Eastern European descent. I was befuddled. They were gorgeous, with dark hair and slim bodies, curvacious(?) but I couldn't quite place the origin...either Ukranian or perhaps Albanian. That had an enticing ring to it. But I couldn't stop watching them, the way they talked, their accents a mystifying beauty, hidden but enchanting. I must sound a bitr ignorant at this. They could have been from Louisiana or Saskatoon and maybe that's just it, it wouldn't have mattered. But I'd seen two of them promoting an art show for a New York artist in the Old Market sector and spoke with one of them about art. Unfortunately, the talented artists in this community are limited, as are their resources. We have galleries, sure, but it's like getting a law or medical degree in this town... you're not going to bat many eyes out east, may have some luck in the west. But it's kind of limited anyway. Anyway, I gained the impression that they were Balkan, or Slavic. I myself have primarily Slavic roots, and yet I never had seen brunettes of this stature, extremely (clearly) independent, bound by a loyalty to "family" instead of some strict sense of husbandry. I have been acquainted with Lithuanians, Sudanese, Kenyan, Cameroon, Saudis, Ukranian, Greek, and Romanian just that I can pinpoint. Apparently, the education here is cheap, as I don't understand why so many stuydents would come to Nebraska for schooling, not when you have so many prestigious universities which would get you a job just about anywhere (Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, Syracuse, Georgetown, Temple) But I did see an Asian woman who was speaking in her native language who dropped the needle on the whole scene. Wowee. Too bad, she looked like a freak version of a Christina Aguilera (what with the cell phone propped on her ear) I don't know hard to explain. Maybe it was the African drum circle in the parking lot of the Little King, the punk in a Scottish kilt, and the tibetan monks with traditonal red garb appearing at the same time on a Satuday night down in the Market. Wild shit.
Posted by: Greg / 12:06 AM
Posted by: Greg / 12:41 AM
Lastly, for now, I am incredibly disturbed by the lawsuits for the file-sharers. I am waiting for the hammer to drop here. I mean yeah, I download music but that's it. I listen to it while I'm doing stuff on the computer. I personally have just bought this Bruce album and one by the White Stripes as a direct result of being able to listen to songs on the albums before hand. The file share allows me to listen to hear music that blows me away, and actually, I'm more apt to buy albums because of it. As far as the Record Industry deciding to slap the suits on personally individuals, I have sympthy for people. Maybe they are just shocked that this things actually going down. And I don't blame them. I wonder if I've shared files in the capacity they are scrutinizing. But my major problem with the record industry's stance is that they could begin using the kind of discs that everybody buys in 5-packs for 3.99 at Walmart. Insead, they've used a medium which is pretty cost-efficient for them. They sell one million of them, in some places at mark-ups of $17 or $18; when I used to buy tapes for $10 or $11. No -- places like Border's and even the independent record stores said about cassettes,CD is the wave of the future, everything well be on cd before you know it. And they were right. BUT what about the couple hundreds of dollars I've spent trying to upgrade to better systems, so I can listen to my cd's. Currently, I have about two hundred cd's which I own...so take that and multiply it by 16 or 17 and you have a good three thousand dollars of my money. And I rarely ever batted an eye at it. Sure, I try to get albums on sale, but I ahve spent that money for the pleasure of hearing the music I want. Now let's forget the number of cds and tapes originals that I've sold over the years at only 25% of their initial worth. Because they're lost to me now,, either because I didn't listen to them enough to warrant lugging them wherever I may move. Or maybe I was hard up for cash and thought I could eek out 30 or 40 bucks from some shylock record seller. I have strongly supported the record industry over the years because I had to have the new album... BUT what do I care about a record industry that really doesn't care about musicians, talent, originality, individuality, creativity or the music that comes through it. Right now, I am listening to Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or whatever and don't think I don't know how they made a killing on this album. Cool story about screwing the record industry over and getting to make an individual record. I still paid $15 for the album. Soooo, question, is it the music that seems worth the money or the package it comes in.... I know it is. David Fricke said once that the packaging is just an artifact, a siginifer of the signified which is what is what is contained on the 6 inches of platinum waves" so how do we get past the frivolity of the package and get that treasure we're really after...download!!! Totally. So sue me. I'll pay you in platinum and plastic... I'll give you back all the damn stuff you charged me for... and by the way, I'll make sure I download it all onto my computer first... and I expect to be reimbursed for the price of additional memory it take to do that...
Posted by: Greg / 12:26 AM
So the other night I'm sitting at a neighbor hood bistro and I see a group of four (beautiful) women of Eastern European descent. I was befuddled. They were gorgeous, with dark hair and slim bodies, curvacious(?) but I couldn't quite place the origin...either Ukranian or perhaps Albanian. That had an enticing ring to it. But I couldn't stop watching them, the way they talked, their accents a mystifying beauty, hidden but enchanting. I must sound a bitr ignorant at this. They could have been from Louisiana or Saskatoon and maybe that's just it, it wouldn't have mattered. But I'd seen two of them promoting an art show for a New York artist in the Old Market sector and spoke with one of them about art. Unfortunately, the talented artists in this community are limited, as are their resources. We have galleries, sure, but it's like getting a law or medical degree in this town... you're not going to bat many eyes out east, may have some luck in the west. But it's kind of limited anyway. Anyway, I gained the impression that they were Balkan, or Slavic. I myself have primarily Slavic roots, and yet I never had seen brunettes of this stature, extremely (clearly) independent, bound by a loyalty to "family" instead of some strict sense of husbandry. I have been acquainted with Lithuanians, Sudanese, Kenyan, Cameroon, Saudis, Ukranian, Greek, and Romanian just that I can pinpoint. Apparently, the education here is cheap, as I don't understand why so many stuydents would come to Nebraska for schooling, not when you have so many prestigious universities which would get you a job just about anywhere (Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, Syracuse, Georgetown, Temple) But I did see an Asian woman who was speaking in her native language who dropped the needle on the whole scene. Wowee. Too bad, she looked like a freak version of a Christina Aguilera (what with the cell phone propped on her ear) I don't know hard to explain. Maybe it was the African drum circle in the parking lot of the Little King, the punk in a Scottish kilt, and the tibetan monks with traditonal red garb appearing at the same time on a Satuday night down in the Market. Wild shit.
Posted by: Greg / 12:06 AM
Monday, September 08, 2003
Omaha is still Omaha. I am listening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska and it is absolutely beautiful... maybe more contemplative of what's west of here... miles and miles of highway, some interste and others just good old country roads. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get it all out on paper. Susan Tedeschi at the Nebraska State Fair etc. The stretches of cornfield interlaced into the Platte River. See, I live in the city of Omaha, I'm not in anyway on the outskirts. I go to coffee shops, sometimes the bars in town, and there's little cultures in each of them. tTonight we met a guy from Columbus Ohio and he was wearing a cowboy hat. The friend I was with asked what was up with the hat, and he said "well, I just thought people out here would probably be a little bitlike the kind you normally find wearing hats." Which of course made us laugh. It's of course not like that at all. Hicks don't use meth in the reams that they seem to come out somewhere in the city limits. Where the stockyards used to be (how we got be called the Beef State long ago) they figure they can cook it up without a problem because the smell from the pens where the killing floor used to be pretty much wipes all that out. That's in South Omaha, about five miles south of where I live, and it's filled with Mexicans, Hispanics, Puerto Ricans. Apparently, that's where we got the drugs, just up from the Latin Americas. Of course, white folk have a sweet taste for what is being sold on the streets. So it all comes around. One quick note: Omaha is more global than you might guess, we have just about every nationality you could think of...
Posted by: Greg / 11:50 PM
Posted by: Greg / 11:50 PM
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