The Scheduling of Reposibility while Gays get Married - I file a Request for a Grant for the Arts

Ladder Truck 17 – the crew are all here inside getting hot coffee (more likely lattes or machiadies). Their big red truck is parked in the middle of the street – amber lights blinking. All their duties like any production worker have been scheduled – when to wash the truck, roll out and inspect the hoses, when to refill the respirators and replace the axes, when to change the oil. It is all on a roster with every man’s responsibility delineated – all except for this coffee break and the next alarm bell (assuming it’s not a drill). All four of them load up back into the front cab – something else they failed to schedule, who would drive the rear cab – the little guy had to crawl over his buddy without spilling any coffee, and go to the back of the bus – then they drove off.

With every rendezvous-with-death we are giving away… / An autographed photo of J.P. Morgan taken in the frontline trenches – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p144

Dave came by – he has the doggie in the car – can’t leave him there too long – gotta go soon. He drinks his coffee – we chat for a while – he leaves.

Household dogs are well looked after and yet they rarely grow old in the human family; they are disposed of long before they reach a ripe old age – Yi-Fu Tuan – Dominance & Affection: the making of pets, 1984 p114

When in doubt
       Opt for doubt
       Or Not
It makes all the difference

Irreducible uncertainty

Makes it possible

       To Just Say no

       Or maybe yes

Depending on immediate

       Gain

       Just Do It!

If A is a success in life, the A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut – Albert Einstein

I called the boss this morning. We chit-chat about my recent jury duty. What kind of case was it? How’s it going? That type of thing. Then I say “Well Brian, I’m ready to check out”. He tells me to hang in there for another couple of weeks and he would see if he could get me decent severance package. I said that I would but that I may be sick on some of those days (it was a veiled threat but not to veiled - I retained plausible denial). Michael is hanging up his coat and goes “hack hack” like he was clearing his throat at that last comment. Just to emphasis the point, I tell Brian “Michael just went ‘hack hack’” “Just hang in there and do any work that comes your way. I'm going to meet with Sue in London next week. Wait until I get back” I promised him that I would. Michael asks after I had hung up “Did you tell him what you would do if you did not get the repositioning?” “It was implied” I told him. “Yes, but did he understand” “I assume so” I replied, “otherwise he has no business being the manager”

Purposive–rational bureaucracy, transforms universal culpability into acquittal, and as an unintended side effect threatens the very basis of its claim to rational control – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p92

By 4:30 I’m at Cassidy’s the bike messenger bar on Howard (the leather and sex club district) nursing a Guinness. My crew at Venue 9 are in a last minute tizzy about getting the tax grant application finished. I sign the letter acknowledging that the board has approved this request for $30,000. Mary Alice is onto Laura about right justifying the figures. Mary Alice is now trying to explain to her about spacing. Now there is a commotion about a “wrong balance” sheet attached. “Someone has substituted the wrong balance sheet” Its business as normal. The Proposal was due by 5PM. It is now almost 5:30. No one has a car. Shall we call a taxi. How long do we have to wait? Why don’t we walk? Why not! It’s raining. Yes but it’s only a drizzel.

Listen; history is a mess, just one damned thing and then another. Believe me, I know. I was there. The door of history closes, opens. It opened, I went through – B F Fairchild – Usher: poems, 2009 p114

How many umbrellas do we need? More decision making. More confusion. Finally we set off at a brisk pace towards City Hall eight blocks away. My ankles are killing me and they are picking up the pace. I say “go on ahead. Don’t wait for me”. I follow up the steps and into City Hall. They pass through the security station but I get held up there. They have vanished. They took my advice and did not wait. I have no idea where they might have gone. I notice a crowd of people lined up. There is a lot of the commotion. Then I recall that this is the second day of the great same sex marry-off that Gavin Newsome had initiated.

Flavors! My friend, be delighted with what you like: but with something. / Be delighted with something. Yesterday for me it was watching sun on stone: wet stones. / I spent the morning in the wonder of that. A delight of god’s size – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p441

I hear a “Fred? Fred” I look around but don’t see anyone that I know. Then I spot Joe approaching. “Do you have the papers” he asks? I hand him the bag that I was carrying. My mistake. I should have held on to it and followed him. He takes off around two corners and I lose sight of him again near the line of gay brides. It was almost 6PM by now and there were still perhaps fifty couples waiting for their nuptials. There was an occasional whooping and hollering – shouts of glee, swishing and camping. Lots of scurrying about with big bouquets of showy flowers. Some were even pushing baby prams. There were some mixed couples – maybe well wishers – maybe I was mistaken. This was Valentine’s Eve – how appropriate

Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out – Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy: The Locked Room, 1986 p278

No wedding, no libations, no limousine, no flowers for me. My compatriots had abandoned me. It was back onto the streets, seduced, abandoned and alone in the early night. The big game had started at 6PM. It is underway at the coffee shop. Tunisia scores quickly. Only one chair remained unoccupied. Yousef turns to me and asked “Your are not a soccer fan?”. “Yes, But I’m an outsider to this” I tell him. “So am I” he says. “I’m an Israeli. But they don’t know that” There must be almost fifty Tunisians in the place by now and only three non-nationals - Yousef, myself and the other Fred. Yousef and I sit on the far bench. There is no longer any room for customers to get to … - Morocco just scores, every one is on their feet. Hands are all in the air. They are yelling. The excitement takes a while to subside.

Wasn’t Berlin’s famous “decadence” largely a commercial “line” which the Berliners had instinctively developed in their competition with Paris? Paris had long since cornered the straight girl-market, so what was left for Berlin to offer its visitors but a masquerade of perversions? – Christopher Isherwood – Christopher and His Kind: 1929-1939, 1976 p29