The Soldier, His Wife and the Bum

I was a bum in San Francisco but once managed
to go to a symphony concert along with the well-dressed people
and the music was good but something about the
audience was not
and something about the orchestra
and the conductor was
not,
although the building was fine and the
acoustics perfect
I preferred to listen to the music alone
on my radio
and afterwards I did go back to my room and I
turned on the radio but
then there was a pounding on the wall:
“SHUT THAT GOD-DAMNED THING OFF!”

there was a soldier in the next room
living with his wife
and he would soon be going over there to protect
me from Hitler so
I snapped the radio off and then heard his
wife say, “you shouldn’t have done that.”
and the soldier said, “FUCK THAT GUY!”
which I thought was a very nice thing for him
to tell his wife to do.
of course,
she never did.

anyhow, I never went to another live concert
and that night I listened to the radio very
quietly, my ear pressed to the
speaker.

war has its price and peace never lasts and
millions of young men everywhere would die
and as I listened to classical music I heard them making love, desperately and
mournfully, through Shostakovich, Brahms,
Mozart, through crescendo and climax,
and through the shared
wall of our darkness.

~Charles Bukowski

Don't let it be one of mine

Jimmy Kimmel and Guillermo back tonight.
It took me a couple days to figure out what was it was Kimmel said that was so offensive to some. I decided if I was going to rewrite the joke it would go like this:
"We hit some new lows over the weekend with ~~BOTH SIDES~~ desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them..."
Because that is what happens every time, isnt it?
And I will say it seemed to me the left doing the most backflips on this one trying to tie the killer to the other side.
I know when someone gets shot, or there is a mass shooting, or a car bomb, one of my first thoughts is “Please don’t let it be a (Fill in the blanks)”
Don't let it be one of mine. But sometimes it is.
I’ll be watching, not because I like Jimmy Kimmel but because I don’t like the government getting involved in what who can say.
And I love Guillermo.

Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History

"The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, according to four people familiar with the matter, including a historic photograph of a formerly enslaved man showing scars on his back."  
Washington Post
"The Scourged Back” shows the scarred back of escaped slave Peter Gordon in Louisiana, 1863."

Slavery in America. The more you run away from it, the more you run into it.

Angel Food

 Last week I made an angel food cake. I didn't really have a proper cake pan for it. When it cooked, it rose up way high out of the glass dish and the edges got toasted and crunchy. That was the best part. 

So I cut it up into cubes. Tossed with a little melted butter and sugar, and back into the oven to toast at 350.

In effect it was angel food croutons. They were pretty good, especially the ones that were crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

~Of Ants and Men~

I like what Trump said.
"It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree..."
It would have been better maybe if he had stopped there.

I see posts all the time that talk about how if you put red and black ants in a jar they will get along just fine, unless you shake the jar.
But its not true.
Ants are very tribal, as tribal as humans (go ‘Horns!), maybe even moreso. Ants do battle when they come across each other even in the wild.
The Naturalist EO Wilson, and expert on ants and human psychology, equates humans with them.
He says:
“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

The story about the ants in a jar probably comes from Kurt Vonnegut and his book "Cats Cradle".
"I can't remember what all Frank had fighting in the jar that day, but I can remember other bug fights we staged later on: one stag beetle against a hundred red ants, one centipede against three spiders, red ants against black ants. They won't fight unless you keep shaking the jar. And that's what Frank was doing, shaking, shaking the jar."

Its a good thing that ants don’t have godlike technology.

Autumn

When I was in Portland I bought a book at the Worlds Biggest bookstore. Neil Gaiman's story, “October in the Chair” reminded me of this old story about bonfires and sweaters, and what a wonderful thing Autumn is.
"“It’s fine,” said October. His beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire-orange and wine-red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face. His cheeks were apple-red. He looked like a friend; like someone you had known all your life. “September can go first. Let’s just get it rolling.”



Maybe it’s still a little too soon to talk about the old High School Bonfires at Bedford Boys Ranch that they don’t have anymore.
Oh, what the hell, its past Labor Day, dove season has kicked in and the Cowboys haven't officially started to suck, quite. And I hear a cold front is coming, wind from the north, though not soon enough.
I remember going bumpity-bump down the single-laned deeply potholed Forest Ridge with a crew of guys hanging out the back and sides of a 1958 Cherokee Pick-up, gathering wood, and taking it up to the Boys Ranch and adding to the pile there, making ready for Thursday night. Thursday night of Homecoming week and the annual Homecoming Bonfire.
It made you feel like you were doing something important, gathering all that wood from dilapidated old horse stalls and outhouses along Glade Road, and down Cheek-Sparger when there was nothing there, scavenging from old brush piles and working old fence posts out of the ground.
Then there was that big ol’ barn that used to be at the end of Bedford Road, just past the Artesian Well. That barn was huge, and there was enough wood there that it had supplied bonfires for a generation. Every year, planks came up missing, I imagine, and every year some poor old farmer tacked some new ones up to be replaced the next year when the next bonfire would take place.
And unless some joker torched the huge pile of wood into flames a day early on Wednesday (which was always prone to happen), then on Thursday night you could watch the first fall sweaters come out in the cool October air, beautiful in the light of the Homecoming Bonfire.

TROUBLE AT THE CDC

RFK Jr. says he fired Susan Monarez because she told him she was not “trustworthy”. She probably did, if trustworthy means “I’ll sign off on whatever stupid, scientifically baseless, incompetent, biased, hare-brianed, Neanderthal idea pops into your head.”

I can tell by looking at RFK that he is burdened by mitochondrial challenges.
And he is an idiot.

THE NEW BOSS

We had a new boss two years ago. He cussed like you wouldn’t believe.
F bombs, MF bombs, “suck my ----- dick” you name it. Nothing seemed to be off the table.

After about two months the one female at the office asked me if she complained, would I back her. It felt like a hostile work environment for her. I said I would.
So she contacts Human Resources. They called me, and a few others in the office who I suppose corroborated her story.
Me? I told them that in a meeting one day, discussing a problem customer, I had said I would always advocate for the customer.
It was like I dropped cinderblock on the table. Long moment of silence and the manager says
‘Fuck those motherfuckers”
It wasn’t really what I would expect from a manager.
He asked me one time if I thought he cussed too much. I think maybe he had gotten wind of the compliant.
I told him that “no one will ever be offended by your lack of the use of profanity.” Maybe I should have addressed him more directly.
Anyway, I don’t know the details, but Human Relations gave him a call.  I can only imagine his reaction, and how many F-Bombs he might have thrown. It takes a lot to get fired in this company.
The next day he was clearing out his office. I guess the call didn't go so well.