Overheard at Table 3: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)

All through the movie, I'm humming, "I don't really see why we can't go on as three."

Yes this is about polyamory or a menage a trois or whatever term you would like to place on it, and yes it is about female empowerment as well as male fantasy and yes it is well acted although a little wooden in parts ... but all in all it did indeed seem as though the wonder women were two halves of a whole: the brains and the beauty.

And for that it really fell into the old trap: the idea that a woman is either one or the other.

Some of the best scenes were actually when Marston and Connie Britton, playing Josette Frank, a consultant for the Child Study Association of America, as she interviews Marston to get him to admit that Wonder Woman is fetish S&M fantasy for perverts.   You can almost see her sexually aroused by their repartee... the dialogue between the two of them would actually make a wonderful two-person play.

Props to the film for showing the eroticism and never venturing into pornographic descriptions, as the main focus is on the romance among the triad, and not the actual sex.  Also, props to the film for including that the two Wonder Women stayed together for decades after Marston's death ... still though, a more insightful film possibly should have started at the end of their lives, reminiscing on their last decades together, with Marston as their starting point, rather than being this ever-present center that bound them together.  As it stands, it seems that they spent more of their lives without him than with him, and the ability to hold on to THAT relationship, throughout THOSE decades, that seems to be where the true romance lies.

Ah, though!  'Tis easy to sit here and pick apart the work of people who spent years on this movie, but I'd say the same thing if I were caught in a golden lasso.

Overheard at Table 2: Extraction (2020)

Should have been called "Extinction" because that's what Chris Hemsworth did to just about every police officer in India.

My wife tells me that Chris Hemsworth was interviewed about this movie, saying that while he wants to expand his range as an actor, this movie script had something special in it that made him want to do the film.

I can't imagine what that is, because it's a bloodbath from start to finish, with a weak plot and cutout characters.   The cop on the take, the rival drug cartel leaders, the old friend who sells out the hero for cash ... 

in fact the only truly defined character in the story is a minor character, a 14 year old boy who cuts off his own finger to show his loyalty to the drug lord, after he has saved one of the other street urchins lives from being thrown off a building by the same drug lord.   But then, he is only truly defined by the other 14 year old boy, the one being extracted, who is the son of the rival drug lord.  The contrast shows how the one has access to almost limitless resources (and yet spends his time in clubs doing drugs - until he gets kidnapped and tortured, of course), and the street urchin, who has no hope and no future except to work his way up through the rungs of the ladder of the criminal underworld.

But that is mere extrapolation.  Watch the movie to pretend you're in a video game, slaughtering every hooded soldier in India, in graphic ways, with guns, knives, and even each other.  

bang bang blood splatter bang bang more blood explosions ... the body count is as high as the number of dollars needed to make this film.

Enjoy your buckets of blood!

Overheard at Booth 3: The Little Book of Pandemics

The Little Book of Pandemics: 50 of the world's most virulent plagues and infectious diseases
Dr Peter Moore
2007
Key Porter Books

It's a little out of date now .. about two pandemics short, including H1N1, and this new monster for 2020, our friend COVID19.

But I picked it up again to look through it to find something that might help explain this novel coronavirus, and lo and behold, I found this little gem about SARS.  The pages are below, but the origins, transmission, cause, and symptoms, are almost verbatim what COVID19 is.

But the most interesting little phrase was the last few sentences, which ended that SARS could have been so much worse, but then just disappeared.  poof!  gone! 

But what if it never truly left?  What if it has been laying dormant all these years, quietly mutating ... waiting for the next chance to strike?  And what if that strike is now?

Overheard at Table 3: Daily Briefings

Billy: Darn, I thought he was gonna stop those.

Joe: Nope, looks like as not.

Jim: Why not?

Bob: Guess he wants to keep torturing us.

Billy: Shit, boys, it's like he's one of those little kids what likes to put cigarettes out on little kittens.

Joe: ... and we're the kittens.

Jim: ... and he likes to put 'em out in their eyes.

Bob: ... and America is just screaming MY EYES!  MY EYES!

Overheard at Booth 4: Poem of the Day

I can see you dancing in the darkness:
the shadows slide around your form,
the tree outside the window
stoccato streelight trickling through
its midnight branches.

I can see you dancing in the half-light
shoulders dip with the warm breeze
through the open curtains,
tiptoes on the carpet of your room,

I can see you dancing across my dreams,
where I make music from your smile,
a pacific, half-lidded comfort,
from which I awake,
in the morning,

to get ready for school,
to sit behind you in class,
and you still not knowing my name.

MR

2020-0423

MR NOTES: I was thinking back to my days in high school, sitting behind a girl that I really liked but who never in a million years pay any attention to me.  And yes, I was a teen in the 80s, so there you have the "dancing in the dark" reference (and yes, the true meaning behind the song).   

Overheard at Table 4: Poem of the Day

You are beautiful in the way that a
sunrise is beautiful, pregnant
with hope for the unravelled
complexities of the day.

You are beautiful in the way that a
sunset is beautiful, turgid
with the scraps of all left
unfinished, that we now
sew into a quilt to warm us
tonight.

MR

2020-0427

Overheard at Booth 2: Script idea "Primer Sangre"

Script Idea:

Primer Sangre

Yes, a remake of First Blood.

Yes, a remake.

No worries, Hollywood is flooded with them.  In fact, Hollywood couldn't make an original movie if it showed up on the doorstep as a final edit already prepared for mass distribution.

Regardless, take the original First Blood, which was the only Rambo movie worth a damn.  The rest were paltry attempts to make money, based on the public's adoration of toxic masculinity and its perverse Nationalist streak.  But the first movie, was a great psychological thriller about a soldier with PTSD against a small town Sheriff's office who were antagonistic toward veterans, a morality play about how society expects soldiers to give up their sanity (if not their lives) for rich men's wars, and then casts them aside like trash.

So ... now for the reboot.

Primer Sangre's main character is a young man who did 4 or 5 tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and who is a highly decorated and deadly killing machine (aren't they all?), but the difference in this instance is that he is also an undocumented Salvadoran who was brought here by his parents when he was only 3 years old.

The guy doesn't speak Spanish (if so, barely) and he lives in Arizona, and one day at a traffic stop (tail light out) he gets profiled by the hick Sheriff (White Supremacist) and then we're off through the desert with our hero fighting for his very life ... against the Sheriff's office and the CBP officers.

Picks them off, one by one.  "You can't send me back to a country I never knew!"  and "I died for this country!  Now I will kill for it!"  and other cool lines like that.

"You don't belong here," says the Sheriff in one scene.

"America made me.  If I don't belong here, then no one does!" he replies.

So, in the end, the whole question is about who is truly an American ... only those born here, or those who fought for the country ... regardless, if America is represented by all the characters in this film, it's quite obvious that the only thing America respects is the gallons of blood poured out into the desert sands by the ever-increasing body count.

Overheard at the Counter: Dear Americans (Boo Hoo I Want a Haircut)

Dear Americans,

This is not an open letter.  It's a specific one.  One specifically written to those of you who marched on state capitals last weekend in your ugly cars in your ugly shirts with your ugly attitudes and carrying your ugly flags and clinging to your ugly guns.

This will not be a letter to the Republican Party, or to their corrupt politicians, but to the common folk, the hoi polloi, the salt of the earth, you know ... morons.

Yes, you are morons.  You are morons for your blind faith in a failed real estate magnate ... I mean, really, who FAILS at real estate in  MANHATTAN?!  That takes a special kind of stupid.

But I digress, I am specifically speaking to the tiny tiny section of those of you who still had the time and money to drive your cars all the way from Ohio to places like Lansing, Michigan in order to carry out the orders of Cruella deVos and complain that you can't get a haircut, or your nails done, and that you want to go back to work.

First, let's talk about work.  If you were already working, then you were working remotely, and if you had the time to travel across states, then you are not working and yet still have the resources to travell across states.  That makes you blessed, beyond measure.

Second, if you really wanted a haircut and your nails done, you would have had a family member do it.  I mean, nails you can actually do yourself and if your family member jacks up your hair, big deal, who is there to see it?

Essentially, what you want to do is CONSUME.  You want to go out and be a good little consumer because that's what Unregulated American Capitalism has told you that you should be.  Your supposed "Patriotism" is tied up in being able to eat at restaurants and get your nails done and buy useless junk like plastic folding tables for picnics you will never have and floormats for your car that you don't need.   Over 70% of the stuff that we buy is non-essential. 

I'll leave you to figure it out.

Suffice it to say, what truly bugs me about seeing you cravenly crying to be able to go out and drop $50 at Cracker Barrel is that it shows that you are weak.  Weak.  Pansy.   Sissy.

Where is the America of "Greatest Generation who lived through The Depression and Fought Nazis"?

Where is the whole, "We drove across a continent to create a country?"

Your pilgrim ancestors, and your Westward Ho! ancestors and your grandparents think you are weak, and if you were alive at the time they were alive, they would have kicked your ass and told you to get back to work shoveling shit from the storm drain, because that's the only job you'd be qualified for, you mewling spit-spewing drooling moron followers of Donald Trump.

Now, you probably never made it this far in my post, but if you did, the final point is simple:  Grow up.

Grow.
Up.

Now.

Overheard at Table 1: Doolittle (2020)

This movie has been panned by all reviews, and rightfully so.
This movie really doesn't need me to pile on top of it, beating it to a bloody pulp so that it never dares get off the ground ... but I will anyway.

I got this turkey from Redbox for my wife because she loves Robert Downey Jr.  In fact, she would run away with him if she could.  And since Like a Boss, which has Salma Hayek (with whom I would run away with if I could) was not yet at Redbox, this is the one I brought home.

For starters, it seems like we missed a movie.  There was an entire backstory crammed into 2 minutes of animation
that was supposed to give us the reason why Doolittle has gone unshaven and unbathed for the past decade.  On top of that, he mumbles like a drunken stroke victim ... which one review explained that Downey said in an interview he wanted to do something "interesting" - like a Welsh accent of an eccentric doctor.   Well, it may have been slightly Welsh and entirely eccentric, but it wasn't interesting.  It was downright annoying.  I don't see how the animals could understand him, because no human could.

Banderas and Sheen and Broadbent and Thompson are all actors of solid calibre, but all the live action characters were far more cartoonish than the CG animals.   By FAR.  Sheen and Broadbent were like the Shakespearean lackeys Rosencrantz and Gildenstern: there only for slapstick Three Stooges comedy and to be killed off without a thought when their purpose was served.   Banderas, who only had about 5 lines, was a paper cutout of a comic book pirate.

Thompson and John Cena and Remi Malek brought a fair bit of humanity to the parrot, the Polar Bear, and the Ape.   They were possibly the only bright spots in an otherwise dismal film.    The three of them probably should have absconded with the boat, left all the humans ashore, and sailed off into their own movie, which would be far more interesting and infinitely more coherent.

Still though, sadly, even this terrible film cannot deter my wife from her dream of running away with Robert Downey Jr.   Let's see if Like a Boss can deter me from mine.

Overheard at Booth3: Going to the Credit Union During the Time of Corona

I needed to get into my safe deposit box last Saturday.  Usually I am just able to walk in, go straight to the box, get into it.

This time, the door was locked.   There was a sign that said, "Appointment Required."

The Branch Manger opened the door and said, "Do you have an appointment?"

"No," I said, "but I only need into my safe deposit box.  You guys set me up on the hand pad, so I don't need to see anybody.  I just go into the box."

"You still need an appointment."

"But why?  I'm not here to see anybody."

"New rules in COVID.  Appointment only. So there won't be too many people in the lobby."

That's when I noticed the lobby.  It was empty.

"But there's nobody here."

"Because they have appointments."

"But ... there's nobody HERE!"

"They will be here when they have appointments."

I said, "Why do I feel like Franz Kafka is hanging around here somewhere?"

"I dunno," said the Branch Manager.  "Does he have an appointment?"

Overread at the Counter: Colossians 1:16

Colossians 1: 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.


So how indeed do I delve into that verse?  So how indeed would I explain that to those who do not know Christ?

Reading this verse in the time of Corona, I am led to understand that "all things invisible" must include the Coronavirus.  And that the Coronavirus, being a part of "all things" are thus created "by Him and through Him and for Him."

So, exactly how is the Coronavirus "FOR" God?

Many American Nationalist Evangelical Pastors will pump two ideas:  1) that it is divine punishment for our collective national sin, which includes abortion and homosexuality, or 2) that it doesn't exist at all and that the Coronavirus has been overplayed by the Leftists, who support abortion and homosexuality.

Now, I dismiss these Fascists, for two obvious facts: 1) their constant drumbeat about the "national sins of abortion and homosexuality" never includes other national sins such as persistent social injustice, cruel mistreatment of asylum seekers, and corporate greed - all of which are spoken of clearly in the Bible and are an abomination to GOD, and 2) that their alliance to political power has cemented them as modern-day Pharisees ... and we all know what Jesus thought of Pharisees (HINT: they were not even worthy to teach about Himself, since he knew they were irredeemable and would never accept Him and that their only destination is eternal separation from GOD.

Most other non-evangelical Trumpistas will not even worry about this verse, because they don't read the Bible.  When they do hear something about the Bible, it will be no more than the verse that states "If a nations turns from wicked ways... (see point 1)

So, that leaves people who take every opportunity to say "SEE!  WHERE IS YOUR 'LOVING' GOD NOW?"  and they will admit that the Coronavirus is "for" God only insofar as to say that Christians preach a loving God who causes people to die horribly, sucking for air.   Also take note that this is along the same vein as a "loving" God allowing babies to be raped and old women to be raped and children to be murdered by drone missiles and cancer and tornadoes and earthquakes and all sorts of death.

So ... I will admit, I have no good answer.  No specific, definitive answer to this conundrum.

All I know is this: that during this pandemic and the stay-at-home orders, I have seen more families taking time to play together in the park in my neighbourhood.  I have seen our Bible study group grow (we are online, using ZOOM).  I have heard stories of couples growing stronger and praying together, and playing more family games with their children.  I have heard of my brethren in their church taking calls from their co-workers who tell them, "Listen I'm not a Christian but I know that you are and that you pray and that you have a wonderful heart, so please pray for me!"  I have heard stories of people telling their CEOs that the way to get through the crisis is to show compassion, and their CEOs have said, "Well, we know you are a Christian.  Tell us how to show compassion."

All of these stories and more are true.  I've known people beginning to write novels, write songs, write poems, pick up cross-stitching or knitting or sewing.  More people are making their own hand sanitizers, making their own soaps, finding out that they don't need consumerism.   I've heard stories of people getting to know their neighbours ... people they have lived next to for decades and never even knew their names.

So, no... while I can never tell you how the deaths of people dying painfully is "for" God, I can tell you that this virus, in the middle of the death and anxiety and uncertainty, has given us opportunity to grow as individuals, to grow as families, as communities ... to grow as a people.

That is what I believe, that is what my faith has shown me, that is what the Spirit has revealed to me in Colossians 1:16

Overheard at Table 1: Olive Garden to go...

While I was waiting to pick up my order from Olive Garden today, I heard two guys having an argument in the cars next to me.  I rolled down my window, thinking, 'Geez is this another fight I'm going to have to try to stop?' and one guy was out of his car talking to another guy still in his, and he was saying, "I wanna be able to go into a restaurant and sit down and eat my fuckin meal and I can't believe all these liberals want to keep everyone from working and I've worked all my life and I've lived in California and I've lived in Texas and I never asked for no goddam handout and I don't want nothin from those Democrat ... SOCIALISTS!"

And it never ceases to amaze me how ignorant Americans are.  If Americans knew anything - ANYTHING - about the world, culture, politics, economics, and the like, they would know that Democrats are NOT SOCIALISTS!!!!

But the fact that so many think that Democrats ARE Socialists is further proof - concrete undeniable proof  - that Right Wing propaganda is not only effective, but is ubiquitous.

Overheard at the Counter: Black Shoes with Buckles

Verble says, "I try to be a good husband, I really do, but there are some subtleties that I will never understand.  For example, once, my wife and I were at the mall and she'd been looking at shoes, and when we got home she told me that she really wanted to get a pair that she'd seen.  Some black shoes with buckles.  I said I remembered what she was looking at.  I'd go back and get them.  So I go and get the shoes and I bring them home and she said, 'Those aren't the ones,' and I said, 'Yes, they are.  They are black.  And they have buckles.'  And she said, 'No, these have square buckles with the sharp corners.  I wanted the ones that have the square buckles with the slightly rounded corners.'  I mean, you couldn't even SEE the difference unless you were up close.  I was like, 'What exactly is the difference?!' and my wife told me, 'You will never understand.  You are a straight male.'"

Overread at Booth 3: Poems of the Day - Carl Sandburg's "Monotone" and After

After Carl Sandburg’s “Monotone”

Carl told me that a face I know is beautiful

with fire of gold and sea and sky and rain,

But what if the face is detached from my brain?

That is to say, what if the circuits break?

With age, that old demon, crawling through the grey

matter with a pickaxe to separate the synapse …

and cause my recognition of my beloved’s face to lapse,

and what if I see her one bright morning,

with love her her eyes, in that new day dawning,

and the sun has set already on my knowing,

and she is just another stranger in my room,

what then?  Will the sun and sea be naught but bleak and gloom?

MR

2020-0417

Overread at Booth 3: Two for the Day

Sky Blue

All you

sky blue

dead things.

There will

be no

In Memoriams,

just a beer

lifted in

honor

of your passing.

MR
2020-0416

On a Beach in Yucatán

The sea bleeds green

algae on the white sand blooms.

The afternoon is pungent

with her seaweed scent.

My children

play volleyball

behind me,

as I watch

my wife,

in the blue kayak,

slowly paddle

toward the far horizon.

MR

2020-0416

Overheard at Table 4: The Silent War (2018) (2020)

Wow.  Amazing.  A spañol movie on Netflix that can totally be missed.  Up until this turkey, my wife and I have loved every movie made by the Spaniards that Netflix has brought out (except I must admit we have mixed feelings about the second installment of La Cada de Papel, but more on that later).

This movie is bad and just gets worse.  It's like some guy wants so bad to be considered the love child of Sergio Leone and Quinton Tarantino that he studied all their shots and camera angles and never once learned how to write a coherent story with decent dialogue.

And geez!  Don't even get me started on the rape scene.  That was just grotesque and pointless.   The uber-killer Russian sniper/torturer/assassin/badass/killer who committed the rape of the witless woman who is the wife of the one rebel in custody and the lover of his best friend (the guy who the Spanish Fascists are trying to locate and kill) just comes across as flat and robotic.  No reason for her complete obsession with destroying all life except some silly backstory about the Russian army putting a gun into her hand at 14 years old and then suddenly she "walked into and out of Hell on the battlefield daily!"

Please!  Spare us!

However, when she raped the heroine (for lack of a better term) it did lead my wife and I to argue about whether or not she was a lesbian.  I thought I won by saying rape is not sexual, it's about power, and the Russian psycho killer had power over the woman by raping her and power over men by killing them.    Then my wife said, "See!  She sees women with more value than men.  She lets women live.  Because she loves the women!"

OK, honey, sure ...  still, raping her with a Mauser ... sight and all.  ICK!  and then smearing the woman's own blood on her cheek with the barrel of the gun?  

And then the woman is sleeping with our hiding guy within two weeks, I'm wondering if she'd really be healed by that time ... just gives me the heebie jeebies

Well, I've just given you all the gross parts ... except for the shotgun blast blowing off half a head.  No real point in that, but that just about sums up the movie ... no real point.

Here's a better review than what I could have written, saying about the same thing, but more eloquently:


https://decider.com/2020/02/03/the-silent-war-on-netflix-stream-it-or-skip-it/

Overheard at Booth 3: When I Will Relax

and when my wife asked me when i will relax i told her that i will relax the day we have retired to a house by the sea on some caribbean island and never more do i have to deal with spreadsheets and fixed assets and depreciation and corporate overhead reclassification and net cash flow statements and all that shit.   just drinking a beer while the sun goes down over the marbled sea, with her by my side and the wind in our thinning hair and that is when i will relax!

Overread at Table 2: To Some, Love is the Open Palm

To some, love is the open palm.
To others, the clenched fist.
To some, love is a feather on the breast.
To others, the slit on the wrist.

Some will find love divine,
And others will find love sour.
Some will say love is the noonday sun.
Others, the midnight hour.

We have so many words for love,
In countless combinations.
Love changes and changes and changes again
In infinite variations.

At times we try to obscure our love
But love appears as surely as the dawn.
But, the moment we know that we have truly loved:
is the moment Love is gone.




MR
@2015-0410
[with some slight editing 2020-0412]

Overheard at Table 1: Happy Good Easter

Lucky Moran: HE IS RISEN!!

Otis Redwing: HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!

Niall Carter: HAPPY GOOD EASTER!!

John Steppenwolf:  I was just in it for the Jelly Beans.

Overheard at Table 2: Dead Saturday

You know, you always hear about Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday and then Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but you never hear about that Saturday.  That must have been the day when all the Apostles were just sitting around in shock saying "What the fuck just happened?"

They should give it a name, like Dead Saturday or Down Day or Shock Saturday or something like that.

Overread at Booth 3: BoJo Caught the Rona

Lyrics for

BoJo Caught the Rona

BoJo got the Rona

Says he caught it from Ramona

Now he’s gone to CaliFOANa

With an achin’ in his heart

He don’t need to ventilator

You know he says he’s feeling better

He says “I’ll catch ya later”

As he jumps the midnight train

Now BoJo’s goin’ fishin

Says there’s too much repetition

Now Chillaxin is his mission

Time to slow way down

uh huh.

BoJo got the Rona

Says he caught it from Sharona

He’s in Winslow Arizona

Trying to catch a ride

Overheard at Table 4: Stoplight Fight

Yesterday evening I was going to the store and I pulled up at a red light and I saw two guys half out of their cars.  I rolled down my window to see if something was wrong.  The black guy in the front car was yelling to the white guy in the other car, "You want a piece of me?!  Come on!  I fuck you up, bitch!"

and the white guy was saying, "Let's go, motherfucker!  I'm ready!  Let's go right now!"

and I shouted, "Whoa!  Guys!  Do you really wanna fight in the middle of a pandemic?  What about social distancing?!"

and I don't know if they heard me or not, but the black guy said, "Next time, motherfucker!  Next time I fuck you up like the little punk ass bitch you are!"

and the white guy said, "Yeah, next time I beat your ass, stupid motherfucker!"

and the black guy got back in his car and drove off through the red light.

Overheard at Table 2: The Last Stand

I used to have respect for Teri Gross but my goodness did she have a strangely vacuous series of questions for Stephen King today... she asked him about The Stand, which he wrote 40 years ago, and about how he "felt" about how the virus is now a reality. 

King described how his researcher at the time and he discussed how the flu mutates every year, and how it was just a matter of time, and Gross just kept going back to how did he "feel" about having written such a book.

Finally, he just said that he only felt some cabin fever, like most people now have.

She is normally such a perceptive and thoughtful interviewer.  I wonder how she was feeling today? It sounded like even she felt she was not bringing her "A" game.

Overheard at Booth 2: Cutting Hours

I can't believe it!  My wife actually said she wants me to cut back on my hours!  She says I'm working too hard and not paying enough attention to her and the kids.  I couldn't believe it.  I mean, we are in the middle of a pandemic here!  People are losing their jobs right and left.. of all times to cut back on hours, this is so most def not that time!

Overheard at Table 1: Viral Load

So I was hearing over the weekend that the viral load can be different for each person and people may even have the virus but never show any symptoms and just transmit it and never get sick and just move on.  Even if they test everyone, there might be some people who won't get tested because they won't feel they need to.  That means the virus can hide and explode again.  It's a nasty and tricky little bugger to be sure!

Overheard at Booth 4: Poetry Movements

I just noticed... or just became aware... or just
woke
to the realization
that there are no poetry "movements"
currently.

In times past, there were surges of poetical movements,
something that identified generations,
something that brought forth new life
in the way that this artistic expression was used,
a new way of speaking poetry, a
new way of living through poetry ...

now, it seems as though there is nothing

No Romanticism,
No Harlem Renaissance,
No Modernism,
No Beat,
No Post-Modernism,

One might say that 1960s rock and roll
merged poetry with music, and perhaps that is where
poetry now lives, through rock
and then through rap
and hip hop.

Perhaps the spoken word movement of the 80s
and the poetry slams of the 90s
turned poetry into performance art in the 21st century,

But that seems to be to be more the method of
transmission, than of a coherent, unifying
theme that brings all humans together
to better understand the moment in which we are living.

Right now, it seems as though
we are all writing poetry alone
alone
alone
alone
on our phones,
desperately hitting post
send
and praying that we will
see some small bubble
pop up in a moment,
a little trigger that tells
us,
someone has read us,
someone has heard us,
someone out there,
for an instant,
clicked a button

to validate
the painful loneliness

of our self-isolation.



MR
2020-0405

Overheard at Booth 2: A Prayer for Forgiveness in the Time of Corona

A Prayer for Forgiveness in the Time of Corona

Forgive us, Lord,
for our concupiscence,
for our arrogance,
for our haughtiness,

for our blindness.

Forgive us, Lord,
for not preparing for this day,
for pretending that
the problem could be left
to our children to solve.

Forgive us our iniquities,
for the hardness of our hearts,
forgive us our racism, our xenophobia,
our willingness to blame others
for a virus that sprang from the world
You created
and which we have abused.

Forgive us our vain thoughts:
thoughts that one group created this
to kill another group, without evidence,
thoughts that one race, one country,
one government,
created the virus to kill another race,
country, government, without evidence.

Forgive us our insatiable delight
at following conspiracy theories.

All is vanity.  Vanity.

Forgive us for coughing on Asians,
Forgive us for coughing on Jews
Forgive us for coughing on cops,
Forgive us for coughing on Latinos,
Forgive us for not covering our coughs,

Forgive us for not loving each other
the way we love ourselves.

Forgive us for not loving you
above our own self-love.

Forgive us for spitting on others, Lord,
for what we do to the least of us,
we do to You.

Forgive us, Lord, for believing
more in ourselves than we
ever did in You.
Forgive us for choosing religion
over faith,
and for choosing ourselves
over others.

Forgive us for not looking to the
mountains for where our help comes from,
and for not keeping our minds
on those things of beauty
and of good report.
Forgive us for allowing ourselves
to be carried away like spoils
by our philosophies and our vain deceit.

Forgive us for not ever asking
where were we
when You spoke the universe into existence.
Where were we
when you formed the particles of every atom
of every world?
Where were we
when you lit the spark of innumerable
suns and stars?
Where were we
when you walked with ancient
fauna through ancient flora
of the world which we
now only inhabit
and which we have destroyed
in much the same way that
this virus now destroys our bodies?

And so, for this, Lord,
I do thank You
for this time.
I thank You for this
pause in our endless, ceaseless vanity
of running about, bowing to Mammon.
I thank You
for bringing us into our homes,
our closets, for prayer to You,
instead of our vain repetitions of
our public mantras to wealth,
pretending they are to You,
as though we are nothing more than some
modern Balaam.

Thank You for these moments,
and I pray that our prayers
now center on You
more than ourselves,
and that our hands help others
as much as they help ourselves,
and thank You
for loving us so much,
that You gave us Your example,
Your son, to die for us, and
Your spirit, to dwell in us,
so that we may have a peace
in this world
that passes all our understanding,
and a life in eternity with You
that surpasses all joy.

Thank You, Lord.

In the holy name of Jesus Christ, I pray.

Amen
and Amen.








MR
2020-0330
2020-0404

Overheard at the Counter: Hágame

Hágame una más
una más para la calle,
me voy a buscar la estrella
más distante
y durante el camino
quiero una memoria de ti,
solo una memoria sencilla.
un abrazo
o besito
o sonrisa.

tu sonrisa sería lo mejor.

Overheard at Table 3: Talking with my Drummer

Tommy: Hey, man, about the track we're gonna lay down tomorrow...

Mickey: Yeah?

Tommy: Now, I just want you to hear me out, OK...

Mickey: OK.

Tommy: Now, on this track, I have this perfect sound in my head, and that perfect sound ... well, you're gonna need to use brushes.

Mickey: No.

Tommy: Now, Mickey...

Mickey: Dude!  You KNOW my rule!

Tommy: Now, don't get mad ...

Mickey:  MICKEY DON'T BRUSH!!  YOU KNOW THIS!!! MICKEY DON'T BRUSH!!!

Tommy: Jeez, Mickey, chill...

Mickey: MICKEY!  DON'T!  BRUSH!!!!!

Tommy: FINE FINE FINE!  How about just using a shaker then?

Mickey: Yeah.  That's cool.

Overheard at Table 3: Cooped Up

and then we could be cooped up for weeks and how is that gong to be OK for anyone's sanity? hell sometimes I have to get out of the house just to get away from my own crazy... I just don't see how so many people can stand other people's crazy!