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Twelve years ago I was struck down by the Plague which bit off the head of the 20th century and spat it into a medical waste container. I lost many friends, lovers and the better part of my eyesight. Friends, to put it gently, I was eating turd pie and asking for seconds.
Then Slack entered my life. I applied for SSDI and aftrer some memorable epistolary battles wih the slope-headed government droids whose job it is to keep public hands off the government stash,I was awarded a monthly amount which is keeping me alive. I have enough to pay rent, sparks, phone and Internet and a little left over for pho and sushi every month. I have written one book and am in the middle of my second, and one day I will have a literary career, as the current book is going to be print Godzilla. Then I will come back here and get you all coupons for ten percent off the sale price.
I'm telling you, cowboys and cowchicks, there IS Slack in the Cosmos and you don't have to lose your eyes and friends to get it. Don't let them floss their yellow teeth with your deepest dreams. Don't let them make media puppets of your heroes. Fuck them in the left ear, and when you come, come a stream of liberation jazz till they're drowning in it.
Who's this talking?
I am Captain Crunch.
I am the Last American Saint, except for you.
I am Lazarus risen from the dead.
Eat the stars and shit poetry.
Be bop a loo bop a wop bam boom.
Peace.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tiny Mercies
Today, I discovered a person of uncommon stature and quality. I was getting a latte at Victrola on Pike Street, one of Seattle’s valorous non-global coffee joints. I was going to order a latte, and discovered that I was nineteen cents short of the $3.19 cost of the beverage. The barrista –who, though I can’t see very well I am inclined to believe is unspeakably handsome—has often served me before, and with unique aplomb, and offered to cover the shortfall. The latte, which I’m drinking right now, tastes like it was steamed in one of Heaven’s own cafes.
An act of generosity like that, seemingly so tiny and so rare, is worth a lot to me, and should be worth a lot to anyone in these straitened times. He could have said no, and it is very likely that I would have taken it on the chin and bought more coffees from him in the future, as he is, even without little acts of charity like this, an extremely talented barrista. But the point is that he made the world, for this one customer, just a little more welcoming and warm on a crisp October day. And that little gift of nineteen cents –which I will feel delighted to repay in tips and business in coming months—might as well be a check for a thousand dollars. All hail the noble barrista. Because of him, this October day it is summer in Seattle.
An act of generosity like that, seemingly so tiny and so rare, is worth a lot to me, and should be worth a lot to anyone in these straitened times. He could have said no, and it is very likely that I would have taken it on the chin and bought more coffees from him in the future, as he is, even without little acts of charity like this, an extremely talented barrista. But the point is that he made the world, for this one customer, just a little more welcoming and warm on a crisp October day. And that little gift of nineteen cents –which I will feel delighted to repay in tips and business in coming months—might as well be a check for a thousand dollars. All hail the noble barrista. Because of him, this October day it is summer in Seattle.
Jane Austen's Pragmatic England
Right now, I’m listening to jane Austen’s novel, “Sense and Sensibility”, and enjoying it very much. It’s very interesting to note that although we’re separated by nearly two centuries, Miss Austen’s prose is fresh and lively, and makes the concerns of early 19th century England seem utterly contemporary.
I’m also very interested to read in Austen of the lucid way people of her time dealt with money and marriage. There was plenty of romance, but it seems that everyone was quite aware of what everyone else was worth, and angling for a financially advantageous marriage was deemed quite respectable, even necessary. Austen’s people are constantly talking about other people’s incomes, and relating it to the cost of living. And it doesn’t strike me as mercenary, in the mean sense of the word. Rather, it’s utterly refreshing to read of people who are aware of their interests and capable of talking about them without a lot of masking and euphemistic language. Everything is above board. The people with the money are aware that, whether they are attractive in any other way, the size of their estates are quite candidly a bargaining chip in the game of finding and keeping attractive mates.
Americans, it seems to me, could learn a lot from Jane Austen. Here, everyone wants to be wealthy, and are quite willing to talk about that desire in regards to their career. But in regards to marriage, nobody speaks of it at all, except for the occasional girl chat and the recommendations of wise would-be mothers-in-law. IN America, putting romance and money together is always read as prostitution, rather than what it is in part: a perfectly respectable business arrangement. . Will we be able to buy a reasonbably comfortable home on your income? Will we be able to send our kids to college? Can we afford medical care in the case of catastrophic illness?Will we be able to afford the little nothings which grease the skids in what can sometimes be a very rough life under the best of conditions? Austen’s characters are thinking about these things while, I fear, Americans are mostly thinking about what they can tell their buddies at the gym, or the bar or over coffee. If they were wise, clergy men and other such persons should read and reread “Sense and Sensibility” in order to help our young women sort out the noble Colonel Brandons from the feckless Willoughbies.
I’m also very interested to read in Austen of the lucid way people of her time dealt with money and marriage. There was plenty of romance, but it seems that everyone was quite aware of what everyone else was worth, and angling for a financially advantageous marriage was deemed quite respectable, even necessary. Austen’s people are constantly talking about other people’s incomes, and relating it to the cost of living. And it doesn’t strike me as mercenary, in the mean sense of the word. Rather, it’s utterly refreshing to read of people who are aware of their interests and capable of talking about them without a lot of masking and euphemistic language. Everything is above board. The people with the money are aware that, whether they are attractive in any other way, the size of their estates are quite candidly a bargaining chip in the game of finding and keeping attractive mates.
Americans, it seems to me, could learn a lot from Jane Austen. Here, everyone wants to be wealthy, and are quite willing to talk about that desire in regards to their career. But in regards to marriage, nobody speaks of it at all, except for the occasional girl chat and the recommendations of wise would-be mothers-in-law. IN America, putting romance and money together is always read as prostitution, rather than what it is in part: a perfectly respectable business arrangement. . Will we be able to buy a reasonbably comfortable home on your income? Will we be able to send our kids to college? Can we afford medical care in the case of catastrophic illness?Will we be able to afford the little nothings which grease the skids in what can sometimes be a very rough life under the best of conditions? Austen’s characters are thinking about these things while, I fear, Americans are mostly thinking about what they can tell their buddies at the gym, or the bar or over coffee. If they were wise, clergy men and other such persons should read and reread “Sense and Sensibility” in order to help our young women sort out the noble Colonel Brandons from the feckless Willoughbies.
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