(no subject)
So thank you Michael Richards: you’ve made it that much easier to part with my Seinfeld box-set. But I kid. I don’t really know how to take it. Whether he’s some kinda racist or just going through that old age dementia thing (which his rambling apology tapes seem to indicate). I’d rather not get a queasy feeling when watching Seinfeld reruns. It’s what I call the O.J. effect: when a celebrity goes off and does something dumb and suddenly you don’t enjoy any of their projects anymore (I already lost the Naked Gun trilogy, I can’t bear to lose anymore).
P.S. Michael, btw you’re too rich to start doing stand up at this stage of your career. Peace.
Since everyone shared a good feeling about election night, nobody wanted to see the results come in alone. hotfreaks and textureslut were both gracious enough to offer me invitations to little gatherings at different spaces within the city. I ended up accepting hotfreaks’s invitation since the meeting place was an apartment rather than a bar, and I could hopefully catch some portion of the live Daily Show.
I made it into the city at close to nine. I never updated my voter’s registration and needed to drive to the heart of the county to cast my ballot. Rain filled puddles on the path to my apartment. To keep my new shoes relatively unscathed, I danced around the mud, and tiptoed through the grass.
I only stayed in my apartment long enough to get directions. Everyone was meeting at ‘The Pauls’. The Paul’s only living about seven blocks away I decided to walk it, and took with me an umbrella and a six pack of glass bottled Guinness.
The rain met me out on the street, but it wasn’t falling hard enough to get my pant legs wet. Not that I minded. At the time I kept thinking about 9/11, and my most vivid memory of the day: walking through the University campus on my way to class, taking in the warm sunlight. It seems perfectly rational that bad weather portends to good change, if good weather portends to catastrophes. My blood was pumping hard enough that the weather didn’t matter. Throughout the evening, I’d been listening to talk radio.
I kept the conservative station on long enough to gauge just how far to the right they leant. In the interest of fairness, NPR got a few minutes of air time. Between the two I became convinced the entire electorate would turn blue. No else one braved the rain to walk out on the street. I hoped to see someone. I wanted to give a cheer for election day: the best secular American holiday.
I rounded a corner in this mood, humming a Rolling Stones song to myself, when I saw a couple people approaching from further down the street. A woman in the front and a man trailing her, neither with an umbrella of their own to protect them from the elements.
It is a custom on the city streets to never make eye contact, and I’ve tried to put this into practice. But before I could lower my head or fix my stare in a harmless direction, the man grabbed the woman from behind. He put one arm around her chest and the other behind her back.
He wore a big black jacket. His hair was close cropped. She yelled out “STOP IT!” and pushed him off.
She started walking faster up the street. From behind he grabbed onto her again, now wrapping both arms around her chest. She certainly didn’t look too attractive to me, dressed in fashion-less working class close and almost heavy enough to be considered overweight.
The man was bigger than both of us. He leant to her ear. “Come on, come on,” he said and chuckled.
She shook free again and they both passed me on sidewalk. I didn’t know how to gauge the situation. I knew I had six glass bottles. I thought I could at least smash one on somebody and run off, or I could use all six. But I mulled many options while I watched them walk down the street.
The man latched on again, pulling her against his belly. She shoved him off yelling “GET OFF!”
I was just standing in place, waiting for the word. Waiting for her to turn to me and say something like ‘help’ or ‘do something’.
Instead, once she’d freed herself and moved a step away from the man, both of them paused and turned to face me. I didn’t run, and received their stares. I couldn’t read into either of them, whether they indicated it was none of my business or to go away. Whatever they meant, they were both of the same mind about it. Her with an expression of detachment and him with a thuggish scrunched lip. They silently turned the corner out of my field of vision, keeping a few paces between them.
I like to read in the sculpture garden of the BMA where it’s free and quiet. It is one of the few places in the city proper where you can find regular wooden benches. The kind you stretch your legs out on. Most everywhere else, the benches come with metal separators that theoretically would prevent a homeless individual from sleeping there horizontally (from what I’ve seen, the industrious hobos mastered the art of sleeping while sitting upright, making these uncomfortable contraptions obsolete).
Attendance at the BMA sculpture garden is such that if you do go there, you’ll most likely be able to get one of these full sized luxury benches all to yourself. Most of the other patrons only trot their children round the art work, and try in vain to explain differences between the million dollar sculptures and Jungle Gym equipment.
Occasionally, you’ll discover on arriving that a person or group of persons is making art right then. A month or two ago, I happened upon nine collegiate aged women who laid silently together in a triangular formation on cold pavement. The lead girl at the apex had her head propped up and watched me like a mother hen while laying motionless. I couldn’t discern any clear message from this display, and in seeing the utter lack interest from the other museum goers, I can only assume the nine young women were engaged in an anti-war protest.
I thought last weekend would be one of my last chances to catch good sunlight and fresh air, so I went down with my copy of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. While I read, the temperature steadily dropped lower and lower. After a paltry fifty pages, I packed up and headed back to my warmer homestead.
I felt disappointed in myself for reading so little, but more so very cold. I dug my hands into my pockets and walked in a sore joint manner, keeping my chin down to my chest in case a good gust of wind blew by.
When I finally looked up, I caught a glimpse of one of the apartment buildings, and noticed a pair of bloody handprints on a second story window.
I was a little startled, until I remembered a drawing of glaring zombie teddy bear, a sharp toothed and bloodied figure that I can only describe as ‘cute’. For the rest of the walk home I kept turning over the idea of the current fascination with defanged macabre and all things evil, but redone in a cute form. I thought of that man in the record store who got some tattoos to ‘keep it evil’ and seemed a bit taken aback when I obviously didn’t care.
P.S. Michael, btw you’re too rich to start doing stand up at this stage of your career. Peace.
Since everyone shared a good feeling about election night, nobody wanted to see the results come in alone. hotfreaks and textureslut were both gracious enough to offer me invitations to little gatherings at different spaces within the city. I ended up accepting hotfreaks’s invitation since the meeting place was an apartment rather than a bar, and I could hopefully catch some portion of the live Daily Show.
I made it into the city at close to nine. I never updated my voter’s registration and needed to drive to the heart of the county to cast my ballot. Rain filled puddles on the path to my apartment. To keep my new shoes relatively unscathed, I danced around the mud, and tiptoed through the grass.
I only stayed in my apartment long enough to get directions. Everyone was meeting at ‘The Pauls’. The Paul’s only living about seven blocks away I decided to walk it, and took with me an umbrella and a six pack of glass bottled Guinness.
The rain met me out on the street, but it wasn’t falling hard enough to get my pant legs wet. Not that I minded. At the time I kept thinking about 9/11, and my most vivid memory of the day: walking through the University campus on my way to class, taking in the warm sunlight. It seems perfectly rational that bad weather portends to good change, if good weather portends to catastrophes. My blood was pumping hard enough that the weather didn’t matter. Throughout the evening, I’d been listening to talk radio.
I kept the conservative station on long enough to gauge just how far to the right they leant. In the interest of fairness, NPR got a few minutes of air time. Between the two I became convinced the entire electorate would turn blue. No else one braved the rain to walk out on the street. I hoped to see someone. I wanted to give a cheer for election day: the best secular American holiday.
I rounded a corner in this mood, humming a Rolling Stones song to myself, when I saw a couple people approaching from further down the street. A woman in the front and a man trailing her, neither with an umbrella of their own to protect them from the elements.
It is a custom on the city streets to never make eye contact, and I’ve tried to put this into practice. But before I could lower my head or fix my stare in a harmless direction, the man grabbed the woman from behind. He put one arm around her chest and the other behind her back.
He wore a big black jacket. His hair was close cropped. She yelled out “STOP IT!” and pushed him off.
She started walking faster up the street. From behind he grabbed onto her again, now wrapping both arms around her chest. She certainly didn’t look too attractive to me, dressed in fashion-less working class close and almost heavy enough to be considered overweight.
The man was bigger than both of us. He leant to her ear. “Come on, come on,” he said and chuckled.
She shook free again and they both passed me on sidewalk. I didn’t know how to gauge the situation. I knew I had six glass bottles. I thought I could at least smash one on somebody and run off, or I could use all six. But I mulled many options while I watched them walk down the street.
The man latched on again, pulling her against his belly. She shoved him off yelling “GET OFF!”
I was just standing in place, waiting for the word. Waiting for her to turn to me and say something like ‘help’ or ‘do something’.
Instead, once she’d freed herself and moved a step away from the man, both of them paused and turned to face me. I didn’t run, and received their stares. I couldn’t read into either of them, whether they indicated it was none of my business or to go away. Whatever they meant, they were both of the same mind about it. Her with an expression of detachment and him with a thuggish scrunched lip. They silently turned the corner out of my field of vision, keeping a few paces between them.
I like to read in the sculpture garden of the BMA where it’s free and quiet. It is one of the few places in the city proper where you can find regular wooden benches. The kind you stretch your legs out on. Most everywhere else, the benches come with metal separators that theoretically would prevent a homeless individual from sleeping there horizontally (from what I’ve seen, the industrious hobos mastered the art of sleeping while sitting upright, making these uncomfortable contraptions obsolete).
Attendance at the BMA sculpture garden is such that if you do go there, you’ll most likely be able to get one of these full sized luxury benches all to yourself. Most of the other patrons only trot their children round the art work, and try in vain to explain differences between the million dollar sculptures and Jungle Gym equipment.
Occasionally, you’ll discover on arriving that a person or group of persons is making art right then. A month or two ago, I happened upon nine collegiate aged women who laid silently together in a triangular formation on cold pavement. The lead girl at the apex had her head propped up and watched me like a mother hen while laying motionless. I couldn’t discern any clear message from this display, and in seeing the utter lack interest from the other museum goers, I can only assume the nine young women were engaged in an anti-war protest.
I thought last weekend would be one of my last chances to catch good sunlight and fresh air, so I went down with my copy of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. While I read, the temperature steadily dropped lower and lower. After a paltry fifty pages, I packed up and headed back to my warmer homestead.
I felt disappointed in myself for reading so little, but more so very cold. I dug my hands into my pockets and walked in a sore joint manner, keeping my chin down to my chest in case a good gust of wind blew by.
When I finally looked up, I caught a glimpse of one of the apartment buildings, and noticed a pair of bloody handprints on a second story window.
I was a little startled, until I remembered a drawing of glaring zombie teddy bear, a sharp toothed and bloodied figure that I can only describe as ‘cute’. For the rest of the walk home I kept turning over the idea of the current fascination with defanged macabre and all things evil, but redone in a cute form. I thought of that man in the record store who got some tattoos to ‘keep it evil’ and seemed a bit taken aback when I obviously didn’t care.