Work, Work, Work - Until You Drop Dead

Bruce said the he had in mind the perfect second career for me, if I wanted one. He was not offering anything real, just his idea. Nothing on a platter was coming my way. He had just thought of something that I would be great at, he said. “And what would that be,” I asked out of curiosity, not that I had any desire to resume a career. “A political cartoonist,” he replied. “Yes,” I said, “just what the world needs – more cartoonists.” My current project is a pedestrian circumnavigation of the City of San Francisco (and coincidently the county). Today I shall start at Hunter’s Point and walk to Candlestick Park. I had just previously done Cargo Way to India Basin. Now the only part left will be the County line from the Bay to the Breakers. Afterwards I catch the #19 and get off at Height and walk up to the Magnolia at Ashbury. Tonight’s guest beer is Moonlight's  "Old Combine”. A political cartoonist ugh? I could do that. Indeed I could. Someone else was telling me that I would be great at designing fabrics.  I could make lots of money doing that.“I love your colors,” she said. But instead I have chosen to perambulate about. I am a flaneur! I am a flaneur! That is what I do (or don't do).

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own night, / white as a knuckle and terribly upset – Sylvia Plath – Collected Poems, 1981 p173

A  recent scientific study indicated that rats will demonstrate a preference for empathy over greed. Now let’s find out if they can by retrained to put greed first – act as supposedly homo economies does.

The Fascists miscalculated. They meant to unleash hatred, but what has been born is compassion… My optimism is triumphing. And I never had any illusions – I’ve always known that life is cruel – Vasily Grossman – The Road, 2010 p102

36 pounds of straw is equivalent to 1 tuss; 36 tusses equal 1 load

7 pounds of wool equals 1 clove; 2 cloves make 1 stone; 2 stones is 1 tod; 6.5 tods equals 1 wey; 2 weys equal 1 sack; 12 sacks equal 1 last

It is a country on a nursery plate. Spotted cows revolve their jaws and crop / Red clover – Sylvia Plath – Collected Poems, 1981  p112

Kettled and mulcted

Herded and milked

Decamped and disembarked

Thrown out, beat

            Up and booked

            Subject to stiff fines

Legal and medical

            Expenses mount

Stamped for exclusion

            No different than

            A nightclub

Denied – stranded and

            Tracked

Standard tactics

            Nothing new

            Or  unusual except

The Consertina wire

            Has yet to be

            Rolled out

Put lipstick on a pig

Paint legs on a snake

Wash the crows

Put a hat on a hen

            Everything is OK

            Okie dokie

Go about your business

            The stores are all open

            Till late
Tonight

In most fighting matches, if one fighter bleeds badly enough, the fight is called a technical knockout. Not so in literary and political squabbles – Deborah Martinson – Lillian Hellman: a life with foxes and scoundrels, 200 p356

The number of drug users worldwide has been estimated at 250 million. The UN is suggesting that governments need to find a better way of dealing with users other than criminalizing them. “We simply treat them [the users] as criminals.” They need to find ways of legalizing and regulating the usage of dangerous drugs that will deny profits to drug cartels. Worldwide usage since 1988 of opiates has increased by 34.5%, the usage of cocaine is up 27%, the usage of cannabis is up 8.5%.

It’s not the weather cock that is moving, it’s the wind – Victor Serge – Memoirs of a Revolutionary 1901-1941, 1963 p47

How do you do

What do you do

Do what you must

Go where you want

Doing fine

Doing it right

Doing it

Did it last night

Do it if you must

Do it up tight

Do it, just do it

It is done

It is gone

I’m alone

Go along

            All over

But the clean up

What a mess

Did you know

No I didn't know

In any man, the best and the worst live side by side, and sometimes mingle – and… what is worst comes through the corruption of what is best – Victor Serge – Memoirs of a Revolutionary 1901-1941, 1963 p44

In a capitalist society, you don’t have to proscribe, you merely have to declare it unprofitable

The product of the work system is work – Mark Kingwell – Harper’s, July 2011  p23