Overread at Table 1: At This Time, On This Day, America

At This Time, On This Day, America

 

These are the angels of our bitter nature:

time, they unfold their wings, and assault the sky,

caring nothing for what they leave against the ground,

not the sound of their dying afterlives, or

their good fortunes, no,

these angels are not made a little less than men,

they are made of acrid moisture

that seeps out between the foetid toes,

they are the bile that churn from the spleen

and drips out the rotten nose,

these angels are the angry noises

that we make at night to the children

that we spit on, those little faces,

that stand just outside our windows, looking in,

their tiny fingers curled around the diamond shapes

of the links in the chain,

fences that keep them forever out

and which allow us to pretend that we are all

free.

 

MR

2018-0713

Overheard at Table 3: Always the Nicest People

Lucky Moron: You know something that has been pissing me off for a long time?

Otis Redwing: I know lots of things that have been pissing you off for a long time.  Is this something new?

Lucky: Look, I know this isn't popular to say, but I'm tired of all this, 'They were the nicest people you'd ever meet' memorials when people get killed in mass shootings.

Otis: Lucky!  You really gonna go there? 

Lucky:  It's ALL THE TIME!  The victims are ALWAYS called "the nicest people."

Otis: It's about respect, my friend.

Lucky: I know! I know! But it's also about the news trying to bring out the sympathy tears.  They're digging these poor families to plaster the stories of their dead relatives.  Just ONCE I'd like to hear a story about the victim being a total asshole, but who didn't deserve to die like that anyway.

Otis: Fine.  Make you a deal.  You ever get killed in a mass shooting, that's what I'll tell the news.  "Lucky Moran was a total dick but he didn't deserve to go out like that."

Lucky: Thanks, man.  You are a true friend.

Overread at Table 1: from "Bike Trails of Canada"

The Bike Trails of Canada end a grocery store in Labrador,

Where now you may purchase cannabis along with your eggs and milk.

The Bike Trails of Canada reminds you not to forget to add cookies to your grocery list.

Lots of cookies.

Double chunky chocolate chip cookies.

 

The Bike Trails of Canada tends to get the munchies.

MR

2018-1101

Overread at Table 3: from "Bike Trails of Canada"

Marcel Proust once wrote, “… the only true paradise is always the paradise we have lost.”

 

                But what if that’s not true?

                At least not entirely?


                What if the one true paradise is the one that we have never seen?
                The one that we wish for, the one we yearn for? the one that we see in our dreams?

                What if the one true paradise is the spouse that we have created in our minds?

                The house that we have pieced together out of photos of houses in magazines, or the insides of houses that we have seen?
                The rolling ocean when we live in a land-locked state?
                The open fields when we are living in the urban jungle?


The paradise that we have lost is the one that we can never reclaim, but the one that we have not yet obtained, that paradise is always perfect, always true.

 

 

Overheard at Table 3: Barefoot Running on Acorns

Lucky Moran: Saw this post the other day on Facebook, and it's been bugging me for days and I didn't really know why until just now.

Otis Redwing: OK, shoot.

Lucky: This guy had posted a picture of a sidewalk full of fallen acorn seeds, and was telling people that he's a barefoot runner and that they should keep their sidewalks clear of acorns so that HE could run in his bare feet!

Otis: Everybody's got their pet thing these days.

Lucky: Well, it finally hit me why that's nuts!  One, because you can clean your sidewalk from acrons and it'll be littered again next day, and some of us work during the week and only get home in time enough to brush teeth and go to bed to start work again NEXT day, and also, what if some of these people are old folks?  Invalids?  People who can't get out of their houses?

Otis: Fair point.

Lucky: So I'm thinking, why doesn't this guy go running barefoot WITH A BROOM?!  That way, HE can clean the sidewalks while running and he's getting in a full exercise routine and doing a public service at the same time.

Otis: So why didn't you suggest it?

Lucky: The post was like, two weeks, ago, and I can't find it now.

Otis: Timing, Lucky.  It's always in the timing.

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/barefoot-running-acorn-post/

Overread at Booth 5: Mass Shootings

Mass shootings are merely the face of the truly endemic, ingrained problem of gun violence.   Mass shootings are flashy, high-profile, graphic, shocking, and horrifying by their high body counts in short time frames.  But they are glimpses into the more subtle culture of gun violence.

The only time that the culture of gun violence is faced in the media is when the propaganda machine, in an effort to detract from a Caucasian shooter, is to bring up statistics showing the amount of African American victims of gun violence (“Black on Black”).  While crucial to understanding the overall culture of gun violence, this is only treated as a strawman fallacy: basically it says, “Hey don’t look at the white guy slaughtering your children!  The dirty blacks kill each other every day!”

However, such stories paint a misleading picture, and even the most basic investigations would soon lead one to understand that the problem with such crime is institutionalized poverty and lack of economic mobility.   This is part of our gun culture, and frankly, only by destroying poverty can this aspect of our gun culture be improved.

Yet, the gun culture in America reaches all levels.   It has been reinforced in our cultural narrative for more than several generations.  Stories of cowboys and heroic soldiers full our novels and our pulp magazines.   After World War Two, nearly every crime novel or thriller was a tough guy who had fought the Nazis or the Nips.   The 1950s were filled with cowboy tv shows with sharpshooters who could shoot the guns right out of the grip of the bad guys.  No blood on that, just straight shootin’ and the town was saved, yay!

2018-0225

Overheard at Booth 4: Mack and Kris Discuss Madame Secretary

Kris: I love Madam Secretary.  Halfway through Season three.  Just LOVE that woman.  Tough as hell.


Mack:  Yeah, she reminds me a lot of you.   Only without the sailor's mouth.


Kris:  Fuck you.


Mack: My case in point.

Overheard at Table 2: Jacksonville Shooter

Billy: Heard there was another shooting in Jacksonville.


Joe: School?


Jim: Nope.


Bob: Work?


Billy: Nah.


Joe: Military base?


Jim: Video game tournament.


Bob: Video game tournament?


Billy: Well, that certainly gives takes 'First Person Shooter' to a whole 'nutha level.


Joe: Some out there listenin' might say that now ain't the time for jokin'.


Jim: I'd say it's the perfect time for jokin'.


Bob: Nothing else seems to be working.

Overheard at the Counter: White Anxiety

After listening to white racist tv (AKA Fox News) commentator Laura Ingraham spew bullshit about how the "America we know and love" no longer exists because of "illegal and legal immigration," combined with the rising legitimacy of White Supremacists in the USA, Mel Brooks' song "High Anxiety" came to mind.

Especially since news outlets have now legitimized racism by calling racism by a name specifically designed to make racism palatable to their viewers.  "White Anxiety"

As though we are to have some sort of sympathy for those who already have a greater advantage, simply by the nature of their melanin content.

HIGH ANXIETY

Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks, arranged by John Morris

High anxiety whenever you're near -

High anxiety - it's you that I fear.

My heart's afraid to fly - it's crashed before ...

But then you take my hand;

My heart starts to soar once more.

High anxiety ... it's always the same;

High anxiety ... it's you that I blame.

It's very clear to me I've got to give in.

High anxiety: you win.

White Anxiety

by Verble Gherulous

inspired by Trump and the Magats, 2018

White Anxiety, whenever they’re near

White Anxiety, it’s them that I fear

They take our jobs away, they move right in

They take our daughters hand

So they can breed more – and MORE!

White Anxiety, they all look the same

White Anxiety, it’s them that I blame

It’s white genocide by black and brown pride

White Anxiety, we’ll die!

Overread at Table 1: Poem of the Day "At This Time, On This Day, America"

At This Time, On This Day, America

 

These are the angels of our bitter nature:

time, they unfold their wings, and assault the sky,

caring nothing for what they leave against the ground,

not the sound of their dying afterlives, or

their good fortunes, no,

these angels are not made a little less than men,

they are made of acrid moisture

that seeps out between the foetid toes,

they are the bile that churn from the spleen

and drips out the rotten nose,

these angels are the angry noises

that we make at night to the children

that we spit on, those little faces,

that stand just outside our windows, looking in,

their tiny fingers curled around the diamond shapes

of the links in the chain,

fences that keep them forever out

and which allow us to pretend that we are all

free.

 

MR

2018-0713

 

Overheard at Table 3: Notes on Liberals vs Conservatives

There is a fundamental difference between the ways in which Liberals and Conservatives approach any issue.  Below are three examples:

 

What makes the Conservative message so appealing to so many people is that it is easy.  In a world where people hate to think, and when empathy takes a lot of emotional energy, a Conservative mindset is, frankly, the easier path.   Let’s face it: to be loving, sympathetic, and understanding takes a lot of work sometimes.  To be apathetic, no real energy at all.

 

 

 

Overheard at Table 1: Gaza

It's a strange thing to be alive today, in Houston, so far from the Middle East, from Israel, from Gaza, and to hear the news, the strange news, the strange news, about the deaths of protesters, the deaths of children.  Protesters, armed with slingshots and rocks, being gunned down by soldiers with bullets made in the US of A.   ....

and then to hear the news blame their deaths on Hamas.  Hamas, the terrorist organization, that has long called for the death of Israel.  Terrorist organization, yes, definitely, certainly, there's no good there.  None.  We get that.  It's settled. 

But Hamas didn't put an American bullet in a child's head.  Hamas didn't force the Israeli soldiers to fire on the crowd.  Heck, it seems like even this time, Hamas didn't even really incite the protests.

The protests were incited by the US of A moving its embassy to Jerusalem.  A move that is merely symbolic.  A move that sends a message to the Palestinians, very clearly, that every word every American ever said about peace in the region is a lie.  A flat out lie.

Palestinians knew it was a lie, surely, but they had hope.  For a long time, they had the thinnest amount of hope, that possibly, just possibly, the US of A would talk to Israel, to have them observe some modicum of restraint.  To stop building so many illegal settlements, to stop killing protesters, all the time.

All that is gone now.  Gone now that the Trump's pretty blond daughter and Trump's money man opened the embassy.  So strange how the main representatives of the US Government were the daughter of the Commander-in-Chief (with no qualifications of her own) and the Secretary of the Treasury.   The Treasury.   Surely that means something.

It's all about the Benjamins, amirite?

But now, today there are people dead.  Some say 28, some say 58, some even say 90.   Some say 6 are children.  It's really hard to know how many people are dead, but we just know that they ARE dead.  And they would NOT be dead - most likely - if what has happened on THIS day had NOT happened.

Had the US of A not moved their embassy, these people would not be dead.  At least not on this day.

Tomorrow they will be forgotten.  Next week there will be some other tragedy.   But there will be families that will always remember the dead on this day, and on the lessons learned.

And at the end of it wall, what does it say about the message of Love and Salvation of Jesus Christ.

It says nothing at all.

What it says is that Christ does not love Palestinians.  What it says is that the people who proclaim Christ feed Israeli soldiers the bullets and the guns and the missiles and the tanks and the airplanes that they use to kill Palestinians.   That's all.

And Christ is mute in the Holy Land.

This Holy Land that slides into the sea under the weight of Palestinian blood.

Overread at Table 2: Poem "Caravan"

Overread at Booth 5: LinkedIn Messenger

LinkedIn Messenger




A message from a friend,
through LinkedIn.  Hadn't heard from him in years,
but he responded to my prompted "congrats" on the
work anniversary.
He's still in Shanghai, the wife has a good
job with GM there,
they've been there for ten years.


He says they don't really want to come back,
what with everything on the news these days.


I tell him about how my wife's co-workers,
engineers, professionals, guys she's worked with
for five years, suddenly speaking in unencumbered voices,
about how the Hispanics should all go back to their countries.


My wife doesn't speak out at work anymore.
Her Latin American accent would be like a flare
shot into the powder keg of these dark skies.








MR
2018-0321

Overheard at Table 4: Daughter and Dad

Dad: So, how was your 21 party in NOLA?


Daughter: It was wild, Dad.  I really don't know how you took Mom there.


Dad: When the sun went down, we hid in our hotel room.


Daughter: I mean, it was wild!  Even too wild for even me!


Dad: You're not going to go into details with me, right?


Daughter: Of course not!  But it was kinda funny, when I checked into our hotel in the French Quarter, I asked the lady where was the nearest Chik-Fil-A and Target.  She said, "Girl!  What suburb are you from?!"


Dad: Yes.   Daughter, nothing screams WHITE GIRL like asking for Chik-Fil-A and Target.  My God, you're in New Orleans!  Some of the greatest restaurants in the country?


Daughter: But it's all fish and crawfish!  I'm allergic to seafood.


Dad: They have non-fish gumbos, all sort of things.  And Target?  What the heck?


Daughter: I forgot my hair straightener.  I wanted to pick up another one.


Dad: I'm amazed you were able to make it there and back.

Overheard at the Counter: MR talks about St Patrick's Day 2018

MR:

 

OK, so it's La na Phadraig and I’m at Home Depot buying wood for slats for the bed in the guest bedroom upstairs, and as I'm walking through this crowded hellhole, I see a handful of people are decked out in crazy Irish wear, but at least it’s not as bad as I used to see it in high school or even a decade ago.  All this, “If you don’t wear green you’ll get pinched.” 

I remember a time when it used to be, “If you don’t wear green you get kissed.”  At the time they said that I was in grade school and I always wear green because who wants to be kissed by a girl, right?  But then a few years go by and you’re in high school and yeah, it’d be frikkin’ awesome if you get kissed by some random girl, so once I didn’t wear green on St Patrick’s Day and nobody did a damn thing.  Not a kiss, not a pinch, nothing.

 

So these people here at Home Depot: like the man from India with the big belly and the Irish Flag t-shirt, and the six foot tall girl with the Irish flag sticking out of her hair, wearing shamrock socks all the way up to her knees, or this old white guys with shamrock stickers slapped to each of his cheeks, these are the true holdouts.  At first, I want to pinch them, pinch them awake.  “Stop doing that!”  I want to say, “No one in Ireland would wear such shite!”

 

But then, as I go to the aisle with the wood and start pulling out the 10' long slats and look around for the place to cut them, I starting thinking, heck, let the people who are wearing the goofy clothes wear the goofy clothes.   So few people adhere to any traditions any more.  Everything is watered down and debilitated.  The ones who continue wearing crazy shit for traditions that never really existed in the first place, those people, for all their ridiculous dress, are the bravest of us all.  

Almost makes me want to go toast them with a green beer.  But that's insulting to Ireland.  Only Americans drink green beer on St Patrick's Day.

Overheard at Table 3: Black Panther Breakups

Crystal:  So I'm driving to work yesterday morning and I'm flipping through the stations and sometimes I get tired of that and leave it on one station and it's on the R&B station and there's this guy on there talking to the DJs about how his white girlfriend got him tickets to go see Black Panther.  And he was talking about how after seeing the movie he realized he had been lying to himself and really just going against his race by dating a white girl.


Maurice: Going against his race?


Crystal:  Yeah, what kind of shit is that?  Is there something in the movie about a special race of women?


Maurice:  The Wakandan special guard is all-female.  Badasses.   Supreme.


Crystal: Well, that's what this guy was talking about.  He wanted a real woman.  So the DJs they call up this guy's girlfriend and have him break up with her live on air, and he's telling her how he needs a real woman and she hears the other guys laughing and she said, "Who are those people?" and the DJs just rip her to shreds, man, saying, "Hey, you don't get to say 'THOSE people'!"  And they were calling her colonizer and shit like that.


Maurice:  That's horrible.  


Crystal: I mean, why do they let that shit on the radio?


Maurice:  Money.  You can say anything on the radio as long as it makes money.  When people stop listening to shit like that, then it'll go away.


Crystal:  Well, getting dumped like that is a sure way to create on more white racist, is all I can say.
I mean, now this girl's got the story of how she was dumped just because she wasn't black.


Maurice: Wakanda forever.

Overheard at Table 2: Trump believes he would have run into Parkland

"Trump said today that he really believes he would have run into the Parkland High School even if he didn't have weapon.  I would count that statement as true.  I really believe that he really believes he would.

"But that's the issue.  He BELIEVES he would.  But there is really nothing in his history to indicate that he has the courage, the training, or even the physical ability to run into a dangerous situation.

"And this guy has been in the public eye for decades!  His affairs have been front page Enquirer throughout the 90s and he's in the Home Alone movies and he's never shut up for once since he called for the lynching of the Central Park 5!

"So OK, let's all face it - the man does not live in the same reality as any reasonably minded human being.  Sure, all his followers will babble like insane monkeys all saying, 'Oh yeah! Hero God Trump!' but his followers are just in slavish devotion to cult leader.  Any halfway sane human being would know that Trump is no longer in touch with reality....

"Which is what brings us to the 25th AMENDMENT!

"But the 25th Amendment won't save us, because ultimately it requires 2/3rds of Congress and the VP to state that the President is incapable, and even though we all think that incapability means frikkin insanity, these guys are talking about a bullet in the brain.   Remember that the 25th Am came out after Kennedy was shot.

"So, don't look for anything to save us from this monster anytime soon.  Sorry folks!   We're in for a long hard road.

"But hey, when there is another school shooting, maybe Trump will be nearby.   And maybe he WILL rush in ... and hey, maybe he'll be unarmed, just like he said!"






https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/26/politics/trump-florida-school-without-a-weapon/index.html

Overheard at Booth 1: Living in a Sitcom

Mother: ... and another thing about you guys always being around is that your father and I don't ever get to have sex!


Daughter:  Mom!  EW!  GROSS!!


Father: Oh dear.


Mother:  Well, it's true, that's why you and your brother need to move out.  But NO!  You're always upstairs watching TV or Facetiming your friends in the living room, just being all loud until all times of the evening. 


Daughter: Well, all you have to do is tell me 'Hey go stay at a friend's house' and I'll split, no problem!


Mother:  FOUR MONTHS!  I haven't gotten any in four MONTHS!


Daughter (clapping hands to her ears): Oh, my GAWD!  I'm living in Schitt's Creek!


Father (to himself):  Hasn't been four months for me.