Poetry Ain't Sissy

When I was in middle school and high school I didn't like poetry. I read voraciously, almost anything I could get, from The Hobbit to Moby Dick (seriously, I read the whole thing), and all those books they assign you in English class, like Silas Marner. But when it came to poetry they lost me. Shakespeare was all right, but I liked the blood and guts and ghosts better - and the severed body parts in Titus Andronicus - than I liked the sonnets. Keats, Coleridge, Yeats, I could do without them all. Ode to Grecian Urn my ass. Poetry was not for me.
   Then I got to college, or specifically to my alma mater, Austin College (go 'Roos!) and an upper-level English class. We got to the inevitable poetry component, which I was determined to gut out like a recruit in boot camp. Dr. Gray had us read some old coot named Walt Whitman. So I put off the assignment as long as possible, and only a few hours before class did I crack the Norton Anthology and read 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.'
   After the first stanza it was like somebody punched me in the gut.
   I read it. And read it again. And a third time. It's not long but it is powerful. Nuclear. If this was poetry I was hooked. The lyricism, the immediacy, the raw energy of Whitman's words made me feel like I was there with him, waiting to cross the East River into 1858 Manhattan. Read it, please, and read it again. If you don't like poetry you will after you read 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.'
   A lot of what we think of as American democracy, the populist, inclusive, celebratory spirit that informs our national image comes from Whitman. His work was controversial because of its frank sexuality and sometimes erotic imagery, but that's part of what makes it so good. If nothing else poetry should be honest and evocative, and Whitman's work is absolutely those two things.
   I'm telling you, if you haven't read Walt Whitman you're cheating yourself. Go to the library - or libary - and check out a volume of 'Leaves of Grass.' Doesn't matter which one, he revised the thing every few years for most of his life, just get it and devour it. You'll thank me, I guarantee it.


COMMUTE: there - 40 minutes     back - 35 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 72 days

Whose Type Am I?

I was walking down Wilshire today to get Lotto tickets at the liquor store - you can't win if you don't play - and I noticed several different types of people walking with me. There are several medical plazas between my office and the liquor store, so there are patients on the sidewalks, people who obviously need some kind of medical attention. Because Variety, E!, G4, Comcast, and other entertainment companies have their headquarters on that stretch of the Miracle Mile there are young-ish LA hipster types in the entertainment biz, all with the same kind of sneakers, jeans, and t-shirts. Don't know when it became okay to wear jeans and a t-shirt to work, but evidently it is nowadays. Because a fairly rough part of LA is about two miles South there are some clearly indigent, possibly felonious types of many races and creeds. A melting pot, if you will. Oh, and speaking of pot, there's a medical marijuana store/dispensary/whatever on the way, so there are some stoner types out and about too.
   As I was classifying these people I got to wondering what type I was for them? While I'd prefer to think I was the 'rakishly handsome, put together guy in charge' type, I doubt that was really the case.
   I wear business clothes to work - slacks, an ironed shirt and dress shoes - and I'm a white guy of a certain age. What does that mean for, say, one of the stoners? And what does my wrist watch mean for the hipster entertainment people? Or my bathed condition for the indigent people?
   Do I represent The Man? Am I emblematic of that corporate America I so desperately want to escape? Am I thinking too much? Should I just shut up, keep my head down, and thank God that I have a job?
   Nah...


COMMUTE: there - 40 minutes, fire trucks     back - 36 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 73 days

Speecy-Spicy

You know what I was thinking about today? Why doesn't anybody make spicy lip balm?
   I'm not talking about cinnamon-flavored, or menthol or peppermint. I mean cumin or red pepper or bay leaf. Maybe basil. Rosemary or cayenne pepper. Don't you think there'd be a market?
   And what about animal-flavored, like barbeque brisket or jerk chicken? Baloney? Wouldn't pasty, weak vegans just love to rub some meat flavoring on their lips, for old times' sake?

Man... I think I just found my new business opportunity. Nobody steal it from me. I know who you are.

COMMUTE: there - 45 minutes, fire trucks     back - 41 minutes, I went a new way
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 74 days

The Reason I Don't Own A House

In my life I've done more than my share of home maintenance and I don't even own a home. It's how I made a living into my college years and a few beyond. I've always considered buildings to be permanent. Cars wear out, refrigerators go on the fritz, jackets get holes at the elbows. But buildings were special. My elementary school might not have been St. Peter's, but it was always around, right where it had always been.
   But as I've been walking around the Miracle Mile district I've seen that buildings are as impermanent as everything else, it's just that their depreciation schedule is a little longer.
   I see a Shakey's that's been shuttered, a vacant building that clearly used to be an upscale department store, art deco office buildings and theaters sitting empty, their gold trim now faded. What was once clearly a walkable neighborhood is now a district for day residents, commuters like me who get the hell out as fast as they can at the end of the day. Everything used to be something else. And everything is slowly fading away.
   I remember when Windsor Park Mall was under construction. My friends and I would ride our bikes to look at the huge hole in the ground. Its grand opening was a huge event, klieg lights, balloons, media coverage, the whole magilla. It was the hang out when I was in high school. Ten years later it was in decline, and twenty years later it was closed. Shuttered and left for the rats and cockroaches. In my lifetime I've seen a huge structure born, descend into middle age, and die.
   This is a long way around to saying that I don't own a home because I'd rather not fight the inevitable decay. At least not right now. Houses need a lot of maintenance, and all the effort needed to fight the breakdown is really just trying to sweep the tide back with a broom. I'd rather live in my apartment, with no working elevator, with termites, with central heating that isn't hot and cooling that isn't cool because it's somebody else's responsibility to get it fixed.
   Plus, now that I'm working, I'm not home most of the day anyway.

COMMUTE: there - 38 minutes back - 46 minutes to my fencing lesson
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 75 days

I Want To Shake The Hand Of The Man

I was grocery shopping yesterday and I forgot to make a list so I was kind of wandering around the store trying to think about things I needed and what kind of meals I was going to make. And then I got thinking about how much I really wanted fajitas right then and there, in the store. But since I wasn't in Costco there was no chance I was going to get any. The first time I had fajitas was back in San Antonio, in high school, when Taco Cabana was just one store on Hildebrand that used to get closed down every two months when La Migra raided it and sent all the illegals home.
   I wanted to shake the hand of the man who invented fajitas, but the origins of that delicious food are lost in the mists of time. So I got to thinking about other great things I can't thank anyone for.

French bread pizza. It should be a travesty but it's oh-so delicious.
   Star fruit. It's fruit... shaped like a star. Sounds like a marketing ploy, but it's all natural.
Bogs. They're like swamps but without alligators and with mummified Stone Age people.
   Australian $2 coins. The best thing for scratching your scratch-off Lottery tickets.
Gyros meat. I know it's processed to Hell and back, but... mmmmm....
   Craftsman furniture. I could try to shake the hand of Gustav Stickley, but he's been dead for decades.
Carnies. God love 'em, they're so crooked they make Louisiana politicians look honest. Only hot chicks win the huge stuffed Pink Panther, how's that fair? I could shake one of their hands, but, really, I'd rather not.
    Gun shows. The only place where you can be amused, horrified, disgusted, and intrigued in the space of five minutes. Why is it the people you least want to have guns have the most?
Revell models. Really I'm more a fan of Testor's model glue, but they don't make it same way now as they did when I was a kid. No good fumes anymore. And, actually, one of the Revell founders is still alive, but he's in Florida and I never go there.
   Coca-Cola Santa Claus. Other than Nat Cole singing, nothing puts me more in the Christmas mood.
Undershirts. The thin, thin, thin kind you wear under a dress shirt. The kind Marlon Brando wore as Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar. Nothing makes you feel more like a hard-boiled 50's detective than putting on an undershirt.

I Was Actually Speechless...

I know this blog is supposed to be about being out of work and whatever crosses my mind while jobless, not about work stories. But since I have a job now - even though it's a contract gig - work stories are bound to come up. So give me a break already!
   Besides, this one is good and creepy.
   I have been getting to work between 7:15 and 7:30 AM; I'm a morning person, I'd rather get in and get the day started than hang around waiting for it. Today was no different, and as I got into the elevator from the garage, there was already a guy on it, coming up from the lower parking level. We nodded to each other, and then he said:
   "We meet again, huh?"
   I honestly didn't know what to say, and that rarely happens, ask anyone who knows me. I looked at him but couldn't place him at all, and told him I didn't know we'd met a first time.
   So he explained that, sure, we were in the elevator the day before, just the two of us, about this time, and that I got off on Floor Three. When I left the elevator - on Floor Three - I told him I'd see him next week. But I hope I don't.
   This creeped me out. I didn't remember this guy at all, and he not only remembers me, he remembers what floor out of 21 my office is on. Now I think I understand why chicks get creeped out when some random strange guy remembers things about them. I don't feel like the prettiest girl at the dance at all, I feel like I'm being stalked.
   That's it. Next week I'm going to stop wearing short skirts to work.


COMMUTE: there - 35 minutes      back - 44 minutes.
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 78 days

Stop Being Curious

I like to know stuff. Actually, I guess it's better to say that I like to find stuff out. When I was in college I worked in the library - I used to say 'libary' to make my boss angry - and I tried to learn something new every day, even if it was some completely random fact I learned off an out-of-date atlas. Like Zimbabwe used to be Rhosdesia, stuff like that.
   Sometime, though, curiosity can be a bad thing. Ignorance really is bliss.
   I got a thing in the mail for a local dry cleaner, I'm sure everyone gets them for their local dry cleaners too. Twenty dollars off an order of $70 or more, if you're interested and want to ship your clothes to Pasadena for some reason.
   Anyway, I got to wondering what dry cleaners use to clean clothes. So I hit the internet and had a look. Mistake. Big mistake.
   Dry cleaning fluid is tetrachloroethylene, which sounds like something crazy people in the Middle East use for chemical warfare. The best thing you can say for it is that it won't catch fire. Other than that, it's nothing good. It's a carcinogen and a degreaser for auto parts, for God's sake, why would I want my clothes put in that?
   I should have just left well enough alone, but evidently I didn't learn my lesson from a couple of months ago, and I just had to go digging. I swear, if I find one more thing that's bad for me that I assumed was okay, I'm going to go live in a convent.
   Yeah, you heard me.


COMMUTE: there - 40 minutes      back - 50 minutes. Ride share Thursday my ass...
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 79 days

Man's Best Friend

Hey Beans.
   Puddles! What up, dawg?
Very funny.
   I see you got your garbage on.
Someone turned over a can behind a Thai restaurant. Best rolling I've had in a while.
   Very aromatic. I'm gonna have to get real close to smell your butt.
Maybe later, buddy. We've got business.
   You want me to go first?
Please, I have to gnaw on my hind leg for a little while.
   Well, the takeover isn't going as planned. But I guess you knew that.
Mffm... grblllfmm...
   Of course, you always expect setbacks, but this just isn't working out. I think it's because we don't have thumbs.
That's just an excuse and you know it. If we really wanted this, really, really wanted it, we'd find a way to make it work, thumbs or not.
   Easy for you to say, you're eighty pounds of fur and muscle. Some of us weigh less than a Thanksgiving turkey.
All I'm hearing are excuses. 'I can't' instead of 'I will.'
   Okay, big guy, how's your part going?
Well...
   See? It's easy to give orders, not so easy to follow them.
That's not it. I may have been too successful.
   What 'choo talkin' 'bout, Puddles?
This whole financial meltdown, it's gotten out of hand. Way beyond what we intended.
   Don't tell me they actually went for it.
All of it. Everything. Loaning money to people who clearly couldn't pay it back, lax oversight, rampant greed. Even credit default swaps, for Lassie's sake!
   Really? Those were Jughead's ideas, may his spirit chase bees forever. I thought he was stupid for even suggesting them.
They worked. And now my person's out of a job. Snausages are getting few and far between at my house.
    Mine too. I guess we should put the takeover plan on the back burner.
For now. But we can't lose sight of the goal: canine domination.
   A world without Snausages isn't one I want to live in, let alone rule over.
Agreed. I'll pass the word.
    Can I sniff your butt now?


COMMUTE: there - 36 minutes      back - 38 minutes, not too bad
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 80 days