“i have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”

my coworker died on monday.
i refuse to romanticize anything.
the last time i saw him,
i was irritated by his brashness,
volume,
and bossiness in the workplace.
that’s difficult but it’s the reality.

and it’s terrible
and it’s tragic
more for his bestfriend/roommate/
platonic (but not hetero) lifepartener.
who called it in to the store
during the 9 AM rush.

his family sounded terrible
he was a latchkey kid
and self-destructive until
the bitter and unflattering end.

and now this?
Now Zinn, Salinger, Proskaurer Smith and who?
It’s not even been a month into this new year-

I’m not sold.

But I’m thankful, strangely
for everyone who is already dead.

2010, I take comfort in the fact
that you can’t re-take
Vonnegut, Ted Kennedy or Rosemary
Allen Gingsberg, or Ken Kesey.

And I urge you, reader,
and everyone you know-

write a damn will.
because then at least your earthly shit
ends up in the right hands.

WOAH-BAMA!

“…because, in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.”

True story, Mr. President.

Now, how about forgiving those $90,000 little dollars I stupidly spent for an education that landed me a job in a corporate coffee sinkhole.

Land of the Empire Builders!

Three cheers for Oregon!

Hooray for passing Measure 66!
Hooray for passing Measure 67!
Hooray for being the best little state on the Pacific!

Oh, Oregon. You under-credited, oft-stigmatized little button, you.
So frequently fantasized about by kids with tapestries on the walls, living in the Mid West, reading Sometimes A Great Notion or The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Dreaming of the Fair, of the Folk, of the luscious landscape and the acceptance and the slow pace of it all.

Portland! Eugene! The Coast!

And god bless you, child, who moves away but still proclaims your stake in the state. Because yes, I did learn to walk in Birkenstocks. And yes, I was involved in my first political campaign when I was nine.

And eff-you, to the ones who see it as the crack between Washington and California, where spare change and hemp granola crumbs fall.

Way to go, Oregon. Way to go.

Now, I go direct a radio show and try not to throw up on myself when I do it.

“We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children.”

Sorry I missed this. I’ve been working early and sleeping a lot.

Anyway, yesterday was Blog for Choice Day. Also, the anniversary of Roe V. Wade.

I’ve often said that you don’t have to be pro-abortion to be pro-choice.

This is true.

You don’t have to agree with abortion, or even have one if you’re in a situation where the choice is yours.

You just have to believe that the living woman has the right to live a life despite her body’s archaic desire to squeeze one out at every opportunity.

Pro-life is not in favor of the life of a woman. It’s idealistic, in favor of the life that may be lead by what is, truthfully, an unwanted child. It’s born of the desire to have children, not raise children.

Pro-life is like “at hope.” It’s a game of language. It’s spin. It makes “family values” voters feel better.

“we need to come up with positive terms.”

This absurd MSNBC article details the quest to put “fewer negatives” on “our children” (read: the children of the Royal We, i.e., white lawmakers of privilege, whose own children go to private school and are only at risk of running over their phone plans with too many texts) . The new term being proposed to replace “at risk” and “disadvantaged”?

“At hope.”

This is ridiculous. Kids of addicted, abusive or absent parents are at a distinct disadvantage. Kids who have no ride to work because the family car is on cement blocks in the yard are at a disadvantage. Kids whose caretakers can’t take care of them are at a disadvantage. Kids who have no one at home to help with their homework because no one else in their house can read English are at a disadvantage.

These kids are at risk of failing. These kids are at risk of unchecked truancy. These kids are at risk of substance abuse, of criminal behavior, not because they have poor role models or no money- these kids are at risk because lawmakers would rather consider them “at hope.”

Renaming the situation doesn’t make it better. Don’t call it a “scuffle” when what it is is a massacre of the lower class.

Children are not “at hope” until they know what “hope” is. If you want to call anyone “at hope,” apply the term to the kids who have been removed and placed in healthy and nurturing households. Apply it to youths who graduated from high school AND went to college. Apply it to children who can learn a trade, who can make decisions that may not always be “good” but are at least well thought-out.

Children who are “at risk” will remain “at risk” until abortions for addicted mothers are offered at a reduced rate, until both men and women are empowered enough to not have a child that they can’t afford or raise, and until, if a child is conceived and delivered, there is a place for either or both parents to go and clean up without shackles and without being forced to “accept a Higher Power” and their own “inability” to run their lives.

The system is broken. This isn’t a linguistic playground, and it’s not going to get better by putting up inspirational plaques and saying a fucking prayer.

the devil dances inside empty pockets

it’s not so bad.

you’ve got to say “i’m a human being, god damnit! my life has value!”*

today, i got a shitty performance review from a shitty job that i hate.

note, i did say “job.” i did not say “career.” this is why, when the part of the review called “improvements needed for career advancement” said “you need to work on upselling and delegating,” i did not strangle someone on the spot.

i work in a crappy coffee shop, for a shitty company that doesn’t care about it’s employees. no, i don’t try very hard to upsell. why? because if i upsell, i tend to be out even more money. because money spent on an upsell does not equate to money spent on the barista who told you the difference between the fair-trade, $16/lb coffee, vs. the “bright” and therefore “tepid” flavor of the $9/lb coffee.

i work at this crappy coffee shop five days per week. these five days always include saturday and sunday. thus, when there are thing that i really, really want to do (boyfriend family meals, sales, museum activities, company parties for the job i actually like, things relating to my dog) that land on the weekend, i usually miss them.

i have missed a lot of things. why? because i have to work five days per week at a job that i hate.

i also have to work five days per week at a job that i hate, and still be broke.

still have to coinstar to pay the rent,

still have to borrow money.

still have to use excuses to not go to bars and concerts and outings.

even when i have time to go.

i work the other two days a week at a job that i love.

seriously, i love that job.

that job, unfortunately, doesn’t pay me in money. it pays in experience.

doubly unfortunate is that fact that whole foods, QFC, H& M and CityLight still do not accept “experience” as a form of currency.

my non-existant dollar bills would read “experience is not a form of legal tender.”

and yes, i know, there are a bundle of people out there who are unemployed.

or underemployed.

or also hate their jobs.

but seriously.

why am i working sixty hours per week to pay four hundred dollars a month for a degree that i spent four years getting, working fourty hours per week the entire time?

what the hell kind of sense does that make?

so, to conclude: college may not have been the best laid plan.

an english degree may not have been the most productive choice.

journalism may not be the best direction these days.

….but at least, on those two days per week, i’m really, really happy.

and on those one or two nights per week, when my dear friend offers to buy me a drink to get me out of my shithole, or when my sweet adam makes me a toddy and a pot of macaroni with extra cheese before i get home from the job that i hate (where i’ve probably been insulted, talked down to, and disrespected by the homeless and the hauty alike), or my wonderful, bright and silly little dog hops in my lap and wags his tail so much that his whole self wags….

it could probably be much worse.

over and out.

p.s.- FREE PBR FOR A YEAR? i know what my next painting will be of….http://pbrart.com/index.aspx

*cred if you can name the film. hint: one of the best and most before-it’s-time films about television and the media ever.

it wasn’t meant to convince anybody of anything.

Drawing by Art Spiegelman

 

sometimes, wonderful treasures come from desk drawers.

guhhhh….

nooznooznooz.

workworkwork.

runrunrun.

bureaaaaaacraaaaacyyyyyyyy.

i just….want….a real job. that pays me. to work. every day.

that’s what i want.

that’s all i want.

come on.

nooz.

oh boy. a huge luxury airplane can fly. all noozpeople are captivated.

hmph.

i’m tired of psedo-news.

i don’t care about amanda knox, tiger woods, the google phone, or this big stupid expensive airplane.

are people still hungry on the corner, in the rain? yes.

are bus fares going up, thus pricing the poor even further from mobility? yes.

is Twilight still entirely toxic for young people, while pieces of inspiration for adolescent girls like New Moon Magazine are going under due to lack of readership? yes.

is the Copenhagen Climate Summit still just a bunch of adults trying to get their photograph taken by the AP and not really achieving anything? yes.

is this country still at war with a number of people, countries and ideals that we have no chance of actually achieving victory over? yes.

does it matter that a co-ed is in an italian prison after a historically fair trial (with the historically fair opportunity to appeal), that a professional athelete had sex with someone other than his super-model wife, or that physics make it possible for fat people to fly more comfortably? NO.

no. no. jesusfuckingchrist. no.