Friday, June 28, 2013

From the Green Country You Reconstruct in Your Brain, from the Rubble and Stink of Your Occupation, There Is No Moving Out




Are liberals stupid? K said as she read the title of this blog post on her tablet at Thursday Night Pints. That's the first sentence I'm going to type for the post, I said, capture the hypocrisy and irony of three well-off upper middle class white people bemoaning the state of progressivism in America on our digital devices while drinking designer beer and single malt scotches. My son, said L, tells me to go live a teepee and crap in a pit when I bitch about Democrats. It's like being told America, love it or leave it when I was protesting Vietnam in the early 70s. When I managed Crown Books stores in the early/mid 80s, I said after we each gave today's version of the same conversation regarding the Less-Shitty Problem updated for topicality, we sold Harlequin romances that literally were the same book over and over - the publisher's salesmen showed me - nouns blanks to be filled in for next months' editions, each book ending on the same page at the same place. They even had a formula, I said the salesman said, if the location was San Francisco the heroine's name was Kate, if the heroine's name was Francesca the location was London. K's phone rang, L made a phone call, I bought a round. Hilltop crosstalk for a small bit, real life for a bigger bit. We miss you, D. Then a return upon leaving to the Less-Shitty Problem, it's irresoluteness, for all the ________ of my opinions, all the _______ of yours. Write this sentence, said L: peggy pegs peg blanks with pegs.







UPDATE! 

PERE UBU PLAYING DC SEPTEMBER 10th!



Who's in? Just bought six tickets, Earthgirl and me, Richard, Mr Alarum, Hamster already in, who else? I can get more tickets.








APPARITION OF THE EXILE

Bruce Weigl

There was another life of cool summer mornings, the dogwood air and the slag stink so gray like our monsoon which we loved for the rain and cool wind until the rot came into us. And I remember the boys we were the evening of our departure, our mothers waving through the train’s black pluming exhaust; they were not proud in their tears of our leaving, so don’t tell me to shut up about the war or I might pull something from my head, from my head, from my head that you wouldn’t want to see and whoever the people are might be offended.

From the green country you reconstruct in your brain, from the rubble and stink of your occupation, there is no moving out. A sweet boy who got drunk and brave on our long ride into the State draws a maze every day on white paper, precisely in his room of years as if you could walk into it. All day he draws and imagines his platoon will return from the burning river where he sent them sixteen years ago into fire. He can’t stop seeing the line of trees explode in white phosphorous blossoms and the liftship sent for them spinning uncontrollably beyond hope into the Citadel wall. Only his mother comes these days, drying the fruit in her apron or singing the cup of hot tea into his fingers which, like barbed wire, web the air.  


10 comments:

  1. 1) park police carelessness with regard to weapon record keeping - well, there are worse ways for cops to be sloppy - at least they are not noted for their brutal abuse of civilians - count one's blessings

    1a)when i went to read that story i was impressed with the professionalism of the koi thieves in a neighboring story - in this life, what matters is sincerity - once you can fake that, you've got it made

    2)re lindsay buckingham - when i got the fleetwood mac greatest hits cd, i played "big love" over and over and over and over again -

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjKL469SpR0

    admittedly, this was back in the previous millennium, when i eased my heartache with solitary use of music and intoxicants - those days are over, permanently, let's hope

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was going to tweet response re Park Police yesterday, but thought better of it. The gist is the only time I ever spent the night in jail was courtesy Park Police, but honestly I figured I was lucky since I assumed DC cops would have been worse. Thanks for the memories!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Speaking of memories, Mongo, At The Moment, recently reblogged his "Notes from the Wasteland", adding, BTW -- four years on, I still work in a cubicle farm, penned like a Veal.

    http://beforenine.blogspot.com/2013/06/reprint-heaven-notes-from-wasteland.html


    A few moments ago I read the following in a book that came my way through a series of apparently fortunate events:

    "The Promotion" by James Tate



    I was a dog in my former life, a very good
    dog, and, thus, I was promoted to a human being.
    I liked being a dog. I worked for a poor farmer
    guarding and herding his sheep. Wolves and coyotes
    tried to get past me almost every night, and not
    once did I lose a sheep. the farmer rewarded me
    with good food, food from his table. He may have
    been poor, but he ate well. and his children
    played with me, when they weren’t in school or
    working in the field. I had all the love any dog
    could hope for. When I got old, they got a new
    dog, and I trained him in the tricks of the trade.
    He quickly learned, and the farmer brought me into
    the house to live with them. I brought the farmer
    his slippers in the morning, as he was getting
    old, too. I was dying slowly, a little bit at a
    time. The farmer knew this and would bring the
    new dog in to visit me from time to time. The
    new dog would entertain me with his flips and
    flops and nuzzles. And then one morning I just
    didn’t get up. They gave me a fine burial down
    by the stream under a shade tree. That was the
    end of my being a dog. Sometimes I miss it so
    I sit by the window and cry. I live in a high-rise
    that looks out at a bunch of other high-rises.
    At my job I work in a cubicle and barely speak
    to anyone all day. This is my reward for being
    a good dog. The human wolves don’t even see me.
    They fear me not.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You are forgiven. I love the LB stuff when he started getting custom guitars and quality amps. His finger-picking rock trademark playing style is mesmerizing and lovely. Great tonality and skill. But, then again, I was a big Buckingham/Nicks fan (before they joined up with the 3rd(?) incarnation of Fleetwood Mac) when I was spinning tunes with a friend after 11pm on the rock music program on the WF classical music radio station back in the 70s. I know, I'm older than you. Shut up! That goes for you too, Landru. Be well!

    Great point to the 80s indie essay.

    Still not sure what a Triskelion is. Wikipedia's no help either.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's a sillyass but nonetheless apt Star Trek allusion.

    My run-ins over the years with Park Police have usually ended in catch-and-release (and in my earlier years confiscation of herbals, no doubt for their personal use) and getting pulled over for doing 27 in a 25 on Beech Drive (which is the main road into my neighborhood). Oh, and watching them at DCU games in Germantown which is always entertaining. They're by and large (emphasis on large) harmless and incompetent in my personal experience.

    Glad you like the Tate.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Heh, I got ticketed by the Park Police for doing 7 in a 5.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jack W__ was the Ballantine rep.

    Cinda Van D__ was the Dell rep. She was still smoking filter-less Camels the last time we caught up a couple of years ago.

    Ron W__ was the cool Avon rep.

    Don M__ was the NAL rep, so he always had some good stuff.

    Phil F__ was the Bantam rep who was a good guy but couldn't help himself and ended up drinking himself into the grave.

    Of course, Al J__ was the skeezy Zebra rep and bane of our existence at Memorial Stadium. He used to show up for appointments with an ace bandage on various body parts in order to elicit sympathy.

    Thanks, as always, for the LB. Quite Tasty!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd remembered Al (but not Ron or Don of Phil) when I thought about this after posting, but I'd completely forgot about Al being a ticket seller (on the 3rd base side), heh! I remember it all now. THANKS!

      Delete
  8. This seems like a good time to mention that Triskelions is the perfect name for our unelected overlords and that I will be gratefully stealing that term from you.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Who the hell resorts to sillyass Star Trek allusions? Oh, right.

    ReplyDelete