Music – From the sound system - at present the call and
response of a bickering couple. The response is a falsetto: “I love the way you
bark.” “I love to do the dog (the falsetto part). The bartender was doing his inventory.
Then he gets a ladder and begins to clean the tall mirror behind the bar. I
like it in the afternoon when it gets hot outside. It’s cool and dark in here.
I’m the only customer and that’s fine with me. He has taken down all the
bottles in the racks against the mirror. He whips each one carefully before
putting it back. “How often do you have to wipe”, I ask. “I do it once a week.
Those down there,” he pointed to the ones below the mirror, “have to be done
twice a week. They are more popular.” “They get more fingerprints,” I remark.
“Yeah, but we also go through them faster,” he replies. There is a country song
playing now: “Sometimes I get mad when people treat me bad… pretty girl to love
me with the last same name. When the flowers wilt a big old quilt to keep you
warm…” There’s a whining bit of guitar. “…I’ve got the sun to see your blues
eyes and tonight you’re in my arms.” There’s a big TV screen above the pool
table. On it are Nazi soldiers in black
and white. They are at the mercy of some GI Joes. The Nazis are nasty, but the big ol’ GI gallookis are merciful of
course – the brown things. I go back out into the sun having finishing my pint.
I like to ask questions. There is a French laundry two doors down. I ask the
Chinese lady behind the counter, “What’s a ‘French laundry’”? “It’s just the
name.” she says. I had been in the Elbow Room. It was just a bar just up the
way where you can bend your elbow. I had been in there almost an hour and the
only other person who came in had come in to drop off a resume. The bartender
looked it over. “I’ll make sure it gets passed on”, he had said. When I left a Ska
tune had been playing.
What a
toe stubbing big rock
It is that
God can’t lift
And then I was told
It’s all
just
Part of God’s plan
I’m awe
struck
I truly am
And my toe
still hurts too
The clouds are moving across the sky faster than I could
ever run. One has to get good at what one does. Then that skill is no longer
needed. I was good at asking questions, but everyone wants answers now. No one
wants to answer questions anymore. As dusk approaches the clouds travel faster
and faster. They are racing faster and faster. They become blurs passing the
moon traveling at the speed of sound. I listen to my footfall. I try not to
trip and fall. Once it did not bother me at all. If I fell I just got up and
dusted myself off. Now I worry about breaking a bone. It’s the beginning of the
end.
Tourists have space but no time
A re-creation
palace
A collection of people without
Content but
with strong connections
Give them a context
Send them
back in time
Clowns are people with content
But without
any connection
Give them some time without
Any space
In a state of extraterritoriality:
Aliens, refugees, soldiers, sailors
Airline stewardesses, sex workers
Prisoners, winos, the homeless
The uninsured, pedestrians
Bureaucrats, shoe salesmen
And don’t forget the tourists
And the
clowns
The tourists are waiting
For the
show to begin
The clowns are waiting
To be shown
were to stand
It’s all dramaturgy, you know
Stupidity… testify(s) to a thinking that is not that of
representation so much as production, mutations and creation – Clair Colebrook
– Giles Deleuze, 2002 p15
The worst place to be poor is
the best place to be rich
Walter has found some Betty Boop fabric. He thinks it would
be great if we all had Betty Boop Hawaiian shirts. We would all wear Betty Boop
Hawaiian shirts when we come in here to the coffee shop in the morning. A row of old geezers along the back wall all
wearing Betty Boop Hawaiian shirt. I
fancy the idea. He has a plan. “I will take one of my old shirt apart
and use it as a pattern”, he says. He says that he can borrow Mrs. Boyd’s
sewing machine. But button holes have him stymied. He doesn’t know how to do
button holes.
I suggest that he get Michael to make them. “He still owes
you big time,” I remind Walter. I forget what Michael owed Walter big time for.
I think it might have been something that Walter made for Michale’s hand
crafted soup enterprise. We all got to help him with ideas for names of his
different lines of soap. Some woman up in Washington was importing a soap from
Japan called “Fish Off”. It was for removing the odor of fish from your hands,
he explained. What about ‘Queer Off’ for washing doo-doo off your do dah. He
didn’t care for that at all. Each soap was to have a different blend of
essential oils. Jennie was helping with the logo and the packaging. He didn’t
like any of my suggestions.
“Does he sew?” Walter asks.
“Oh, yes. Big time”
He runs the idea past Linda. “Oh, no,” she says. “Get a
pattern from Britext.” I was all for that. I knew that any shirt of Walter’s was
going to be too little for me and too big for Linda. And way too big for the
‘Little People’. Linda even volunteered to cut the fabric and do the button
holes.
Walter had been complaining that he had too much time on his
hands and yet I doubted that he’d carry through with his project. I stopped by
Britext and bought the pattern. Now he has no excuse. “Do you have enough material
to do Betty Boop Hawaiian shirts for the ‘Little People”, I asked.
“How many of them are there,” he
wanted to know.
“Oh, their numbers increase and their numbers decrease, but
there is never just one”, I told him. “They would need at least a couple. If
they need more they can make them themselves.”
“Do they have the of Betty Boop
fabric,” Walter asked: “And can they sew?
“Have you ever met a ‘Little Person’ who could not sew or at
least cobble shoes,” I asked him?
“No, but then I’ve never actually
ever really met a ‘Little Person’.
Anyway Walter has the sewing machine and he has the pattern
and he has the fabic and he has friends with all the know how that he needs. And he has plenty of time. Still there are no
Betty Boop shirts. And the ‘Little People’ had said that they would help too.
They even said they could make as much Betty Boop fabric as we could possibly
use.
“Can you make it out of rayon,” I asked. I preferred rayon
to silk. Walter’s Betty Poop fabric was mere cotton.
“Any thing you want,” they said
(I always say ‘they’ because there is never just one).
“Can you spin it out of gold?”
“If you supply enough straw.”
“How much is enough,” I asked? Meaning by that how much
straw would they need. I guess that depended on how much gold I wanted them to spin.
I had a vision. The Little People don’t like it when you get greedy.
First it’s an apprenticeship
Then it is time for servitude
And lastly stewardship
It takes a long time
To become a
dignitary
Twenty years learning
Twenty years conforming
Twenty years expounding
It took a long time
And now it has
been
Accomplished
Twenty years to go
The
consequence of
Getting
old
The difference in longevity
And the
failure to
Conceive
of a new role
For those of us who have gotten old
And
wouldn’t it have been better
Spending
a lifetime exploring
There is a lot of forgiveness in
a little salt and pepper
The average age of an American farmer is 58.3. A third of
all US farmers are older that 65.
