Waking up with Rabbit Ears and a Fear of Shotguns

It rained after five this morning and I was up and gone before seven – I went to bed way too early – and oh how I ache now – but I was falling asleep in front of the TV. One no longer wakes up to a test pattern – that bull’s eye target with its head of an Indian chief in fuzzy black and white and the crackle of white noise on hi-fidelity stereo-speakers of a consol TV with rabbit ears atop. It’s in the middle of the night when and you are trying to figure were you are – Now everything is  24-7 except for public transportation – so you know your still at home – your safe at least you know that much.  Get up and go to bed! It just doesn’t happen anymore – everyone has a monitor near their bed and a remote – everything is as convenient as the flick of the digit – given that the batteries haven't gone dead.

All the energy of the state now goes into holding the state together. Law and order has become and end in itself – V S Naipaul – The Return of Eva Peron with the Killings in Trinidad, 1981 p107

Evil is an excuse to not-think – it exonerates and empowers its opponents

Fear determines the attitude toward life. Security is displacing freedom and equality form the highest position on the scale of values – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p8

What we have lost in the last half century is the ability to act as affective individuals without having lost the responsibility or accountability for our individual actions. We lost both our innocence and our relevance and have learned to fear.

The essence of the Oedipal complex is the project of becoming God – Norman O Brown – Life Against Death, 1959 p118

So many of the really important problems, the all-consuming problems, have to do with abstractions and the meaning of symbols, but if we can busy ourselves with biological functions we can ignore all of that. But the one that we cannot ignore is death – or its alternative - the futility of turning ourselves into Gods

The dominant relations of definition accord the engineering and natural sciences a monopoly position – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p34

She has her project
Her particular project
A project can be demanding

       Something about planting
Some projects demand fund
       Raising – hers does
We needs to know about
       Those people
Get a Job! That’s your project
                         Today
Get Good Grades! – Momma’s
        Little helper – Parent
                         Of an Honor Roll Student
This mother’s son and/or  her daughter
        Is in the military – maybe even Iraq
                          Proud Army Mother
                          Support our Troops
                          Baby on Board
       When the Rapture Happens
                          This Car will be without
                          A driver


Her project status depends
        On her project plan
If it involves a spreadsheet
                           Count me out
Describe your project in fifty words
                           Or less
        To make this a better place to live
Goals and objectives are monitored
      Via performance measurers


This is my project and I’m sticking
                            To it
Her project intersects with Tulips
                            On Troost
Someone from Parks and Recreation
       Is advising her on plantings
The biology student and the theology
       Student should think about
                             Radically different projects
So good to meet you and good luck
                            With your project too

Everyone who is openly or secretly a supporter of the Popular Front should be shot… We have to sow terror. We must eliminate without scruples all those who do not think like ourselves…If I found my father amongst my opponents, I would have him shot – General Emilio Mola

You struggle to become Gods and yet you die!

The three pillars of security are crumbling – the state, science, and the economy are failing to provide security – and are naming the ‘self-conscious citizen’ as their legal heir – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p45

The pleasure and passion of pure frustration - to conceive without providing an example of what was concieved

Break it / Up young men their guns are pointed / At you are pointed at all the mad flaming / Grandeur which killers can never make die – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p26

It’s back to the jury room again this morning. We have a holdout. Will he have changed his mind? Will there be bargaining for a possession verdict in return for a not guilty on the intention to sell charge? I don’t think we were given that option. The narrative is written in blood – it’s the Older White Male vs. the World.

Acceptable risks are those that are accepted – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p13

Reality is constructed from technicalities.

Two young ladies are on their way to a court appearance. You called me on my cell phone and hung up. Don’t you call me and hang up. An old man’s papaya gets loose in the back of the bus and rolls under the seats toward the front. We all got out at the Hall of Justice. “Strike” I asked. “No gutter ball”, he replies. He went in through the employee entrance. The rest of us have to go through security.

Global risk is the staging of the reality of global risk – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p10

We send a note to Judge Stewart saying that we believe ourselves to be deadlocked. Then we go to lunch. I went to the Flower Market Café. No verdict is reached with the jury eleven to one. The assistant DA wants us to go back and try a little harder. We explain it is eleven to one in favor of acquittal. He was unable to comprehend such a state of affairs.

The moment risks become real… they become catastrophes – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p9

Flag-a-cab Taxi School work sheet no.2 and a city map, the man in the t-shirt and blue jeans is studying to become a taxi driver. He has the Valley Yellow Pages spread out in front of him. It’s getting dark and I am planning on making Kim Nalley’s tribute to Nina Simone at 9PM this evening. This is a break with tradition – going out late on a rainy work night. I start with a visit to my favorite bar for an Alcatraz Stout. All of the regulars are there. Just up the block on Columbus - Love Me Porgy with Kim Nally. Daddy Deep Inside Me.

The recapturable nostalgia of nostalgia / for a life. I might have hated, thus mourned // but do we really need anything more to be sorry about / wouldn’t it be extra, as all pain is extra – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p300