Ode to Star Market

(...or, How I Didn't Get Sushi Last Night And Made This Up In The Car On The Way Home.)

Star sells sushi a la carte, that's why I'm bound to go there
Otherwise I stay away from Supermarket Nightmare 
Homeward bound this dusk from GiantSuckingSound.com
A big enormous yen for sushi hit me like a bomb

"Do I dare?" I asked myself, approaching Porter Square
This time of night, without a doubt, a monster lurks in there:
Writhing, ugly, slow and crass, a teeming steel and rubber clot
Evil, angry...what, you ask? The friggin' Porter parking lot!

Dreams of maki and wasabi danced around my hungry head
I steeled my nerve and gripped the wheel and gunned it straight ahead
"I am going to park this car," with all the grit that I could muster
(Note to self: Never heed your inner Colonel Custer)

I took a breath; I'm all alone and no one has my back
Angry lady almost rammed me with her giant Cadillac
I should have bailed, I knew the score, but damn! I wanted sticky rice!
If not for that I'd not have risked my sanity to sacrifice

I chanced another round in hopes a space would open up
Saw Soccer Mom in Minivan flip off Dude in Pick-up Truck
Chick in Audi terror-stricken, Man in Beemer idled
Warning signals from myself, "You're getting homicidal--"

Abort! Abandon Porter Square, forget about the snapper!"
Oaf in Camry! Taurus Loser! Subaru Brake-Tapper!
I finally made out and home, to contemplate my foolishness:
How much did I want that fish, and how much did I need that stress?

Mass Transit

Mass Transit is one of those special entries that I had always planned to use as the basis for a short story. Here I crossed paths with a stranger on a bus, and I've never stopped thinking about this man. In a way, I'm glad I waited, because when I do write this short story, I believe I know the conclusion. It took me eleven years to learn it, is all. Had I tried to finish the story in 2001, I would have only been approximating what I now know. Hey, getting old isn't so bad. 

Mass Transit
(October 04, 2001)

An articulate male voice spoke softly. It said, "That is one interesting outfit."

Sighing, I looked up to see the owner of the voice. I just knew that one of these guys was going to start talking to me. That's what happens when a lone chick in a fringed gypsy dress, pink shades, pearls, and Doc Martens shows up at the bus stop outside a VA facility. Only one other woman was waiting for the bus, standing apart from the group of vets, haggard and extremely pregnant in a man's oversized Harley Davidson T-shirt over pilled black Walmart leggings. 

The person that had peeled off from the pack to appreciate my attire was younger than the rest of the men. The voice accompanied the kind of face that looked vaguely like someone I'd seen before. Familiar and forgettable. Unlike most of the others, he was clean-shaven and did not give off any noticeable odor, except for that of stale cigarette smoke. He was appropriately dressed for the warm weather in a bright short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants. The other ex-soldiers and forgotten war heroes that cling to the VA hospitals like ducks to a pond were scruffy, bearded, layered in flannel and denim, despite the afternoon heat. Jackets over flannel shirts over T-shirts. None spoke. Most were smoking, including the person addressing me.

"I think so," he continued evenly. "I think it is a very interesting outfit. Do you work here?" he asked, pointing at the VA hospital.

"No, I work over there," I answered, gesturing somewhat vaguely towards where I think Technology Park Drive might be -- I don't have a very good sense of direction. "This is the nearest bus stop back to the city," I added unnecessarily. 

"Do YOU work here?" I asked, for lack of anything else to say. The 62 bus chugged into sight.

"No," he said, pinching with two fingers to break his Marlboro cigarette just above the point where it was burning. I stared, fascinated, as he squelched the glow with bare fingertips. "I," he flicked tobacco shreds to the ground, inspected the extinguished cigarette tip, "am a bum." He put the cigarette into his pocket. "And, I'm good at it." 

The cigarette that he was saving for later is almost all the way smoked down. I mulled over what cigarettes cost these days. I didn't know. Watching this homeless man saving a remaining puff or two for later, knowing full well that I'd have stamped that butt beneath my boot, I felt the guilty twinge of the myopic privileged. Like everyone else I know, I complain about my demanding job, the hectic pace of my life, always a million things to do, constantly battling encroaching clutter in my apartment. But it all rings hollow when you meet up with poverty at the bus stop. I felt sure that this man knows the price of a pack of smokes exactly to the penny.

With the 62 bus finally grinding to a stop, expelling a noxious cloud, the door opened and we all lined up to climb in. I was not surprised when this man sat next to me as though Providence had decreed it. 

"How does my face look?" he asked, gingerly feeling his cheekbone under his right eye. I peered closer and noticed a bluish puffiness. I told him it's hardly noticeable. I asked what happened.

"I just got kicked off the ward for fighting," looking out the window as we pulled away from the VA. "One of the staff hauled off and hit me. They don't believe me that he started it. They're like cops. They stick together." After a minute he added, "That's the second fight in as many days." Ignoring the stares of the black passengers, he described a rowdy scene from yesterday that culminated with "kicking the ass of a black guy in the park." 

"I bought him a drink. He hit me. I have a black belt in karate. I don't like to fight, but I had to roundhouse kick him. There was a ring of black people cheering me on. The guy was a bully. White guys don't usually fight back in a situation where everyone around is black. But nobody is safe from a bully. What do you think of this shirt?"

"It's like Magnum P.I." I said. "Yes," he agreed, "it's a Hawaiian shirt. It's linen. This is an eighty dollar shirt. I prefer to dress well. These colors, I can wear with black, tan, green...actually, anything but blue will go with this shirt."

He told me that that on November 1st he'll have a job, an apartment, and a car. He also told me that he was a drug addict. He had forty dollars, and he was taking the bus to Back Bay to get crack.

"I wouldn't know how to buy crack to save my life," I told him. 

"It's everywhere," he said. "Bums on crack can spot other bums on crack. Crack addicts know where to get crack." 

He looked at me as if deciding whether or not to continue. I made my face neutral, leaving the decision up to him. "Water," he said, apparently deciding to tell me all about it," always finds its own level." 

We chugged through residential neighborhoods, past a used-looking shopping center. He gazed out the window impassively and described a downward spiral where crime and drug use alternately become each other's cause and effect, until everything else in life is gone, and any means to get drugs is acceptable. In California, he worked as a smuggler.

"A smuggler."

"Yes. I smuggled across the Mexican border."

"What did you smuggle?"

"Mexicans."

The bus stopped to admit a horde of high school kids. Staring at each one in turn, he went into great detail about the false-bottom trucks used to transport Mexicans across the border, and how he only did it because he was desperate for money to buy more drugs.

I told him that I know someone who, when he was young, got arrested in South America for drugs. That the Ecuadorians had tried aversion therapy on him, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange. "It doesn't seem like that would work for humans," I added. "Why not?" he said. "The human brain is extremely suggestible. Aversion therapy is very effective." He went on to describe Pavlovian examples of aversion therapy that have been written up, interrupting his train of thought only to point out which of the high school kids were high right now. "It's in the eyes," he said. "That one. At the end." 

The skinny boy he was blatantly pointing at, as though the kids were on TV and wouldn't notice being discussed so openly, had a wild head of dreadlocks, and glazed eyes. The boy sank into a seat and leaned over, head nearly between his knees, eyes closed. A waifish girl in a thrift shop halter top settled next to the boy and spoke urgently into his ear. The boys eyes remained closed.

"Yes," the man said, as though a question had been answered. "Aversion therapy is very powerful. But so are drugs."

"Where are you going to go now? Another VA?"

"First to Back Bay. There is a Starbucks where I like to sit and have coffee, and watch the people go by." 

I told him I didn't like Starbucks coffee. "Dunkin Donuts tastes so much better. Starbucks coffee tastes burnt." 

"You think that, but that's because you're like most people who don't understand coffee. Coffee is like cheese. What's the easiest cheese to get people to eat? Sure, American cheese. But that doesn't mean that every now and then you don't want a nice sharp Cheddar or a tangy Swiss or even a Brie or Camembert." 

We were getting closer to town. My thoughts began to drift towards dinner plans and evening relaxation. Maybe I'll make some iced tea. He was telling me that he was a Botanist, he used to grow coffee. "Dunkin Donuts coffee is a blend. There are many different kinds of cultivated coffee. The genus of coffee is coffea, c-o-f-f-e-a. But there are different species. The blending process makes a generic-tasting, mild coffee. You're not really tasting it the way you would if you had a cup of, say a nice Sumatran roast. The roasting brings out the essence of the bean." 

After Starbucks, he's going to take a bus to Cape Cod. "People don't realize it's a lot nicer off-season. Once the tourists leave."

The bus pulled into Alewife station and lurched to a stop. The doors wheezed open and everyone jostled to file off and into the station. When we reached the sidewalk, I turned around. The man didn't seem to be in any particular hurry to get anywhere.

"What's your name?" I asked. 

"Jason," he said. 

"Well Jason, um...good luck with everything."


He nodded. He'd already pulled the mostly-smoked cigarette out of his pocket. As I walked away toward the inbound train and home, he lit it.

Unpresidented

(January 21, 2001)

Junior's in the White House. It's all over now but the strip-mining.

Don't misconstrue the fact that I slept through the inauguration this morning as apathy. I do care about the future of this country. I just didn't realize that Magnolia was a two-taper when Hub put it on last night. I didn't get to sleep until almost 4am.

From the bottom of his heart George W. Bush thanks the American people for putting him in the White House. Georgie, from the pit of my stomach, you're welcome to it. The hope is that you don't do anything that can't be undone four years from now when your simpering, whining ass gets thrown back to the ranch.

For most of the country the Presidential election was a choice between the lessor of two evils. Throughout October and November, I found myself giving advice to the dazed Democrats who were going with the "halo effect" theory. Those were the voters who, however illogically, lumped Bill Clinton's sex life with Al Gore's politics.

I said, "If you're choosing between the lessor of two evils, how about going with the one you haven't tried already." Another Bush in office? Have you been licking windshield wipers? When Junior says that a woman's right to choose is unconstitutional, I feel sick. More so when he simpers that the Bill of Rights says it's okay for street gangs to carry guns and kill you. Add scary health plan ideas, shortsighted energy plans...it's all too familiar. It's all so Reagan/Bush

Not that the Gore leadership would be any better. Any self-respecting American at least wants to put some trust in their leader, and who would trust that guy? Personal integrity is Clinton's problem too, and even Clinton supporters agree that lying under oath is a no-no. And when it comes to integrity Al and Tipper-- because face it, when you get a President you get the spouse in a package deal-- are the original karma chameleons. I don't even mind Al's mercurial politics, actually. Situations change, socially and politically, that would result in a person legitimately flip-flopping on a belief. That does not bother me. What bothers me is that he denies doing it. Just own up. Just say, "Yes, I supported that bill in 1982, but then I realized that it had an effect on health care I hadn't foreseen...."

And Tipper. Oh man.

Every time I look at her I think of it.

You know what I mean.

Come on, sing it with me...

"I knew a girl named Nikki I guess you could say she was a sex fiend;
Met her in a hotel lobby masturbating in a magazine..."

It all started with Darling Nikki,, from Prince's Purple Rain. I fucking LOVE this album, it's genius. It sold ten million copies, and the movie made 60 million in two months. When Doves Cry was Number One for five weeks and the biggest selling single of 1984. (1)

Well, one of those ten million copies made its way, unfortunately, into the hands of one of the four or five or six Gore children.

That's another thing. For people so supposedly environmentally-minded they sure bred a lot.

Well, Tipper overheard this song one day and, instead of just taking it away from her OWN child as inappropriate, decided to take ALL TEN MILLION COPIES away from EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. (2)

In what can only be described as blatant criminal misuse of pillow talk to turn the gears of the political power machine, Tip and her babbling coffee klatch of other bored senators' wives gathered and formed a Nazi-esque coalition called the Parents Music Resource Center. The PMRC got all their husbands to suddenly start passing all kinds of outrageous regulations that somehow they thought the music and arts community wouldn't recognize as good old fashioned censorship.

But censorship is what it was, however prettily they wanted to dress it up. They demanded that record companies refuse to release any music these wives would deem "unwholesome." They demanded that music stores make completely subjective decisions about what music to stock, relegating anything that mentions sex or drugs to the dustbin.

One good thing about my parents, they did not for one second buy into the PMRC bullshit in the least. We grew up with Marvin Gaye's "You Sure Love To Ball" and The Beatles "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" and a million other songs the Washington Wives would probably have wanted banned. Sex in rock? Why Tipper, you don't say?

My clearest recollection of the PMRC is Frank Zappa addressing Congress. The man super-heroically stood up and said what everyone was thinking. His statement is reprinted in a terrific autobiography called The Real Frank Zappa Book. Frank railed eloquently about the unacceptable situation wherein the opinions of a few, who happen to have special access to legislative machinery, are infringing on the civil liberties of everyone in the name of protecting children. My favorite sound bite, "What if the next group of Washington Wives demands a large yellow 'J' on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to 'concealed Zionist doctrine'?" (3)

Despite the efforts of Frank, John Denver, Dee Snider and others, the record industry caved on portions of of the PMRC demands. Today there are Tipper Stickers on music with explicit lyrics. But at least the music is still ALLOWED TO BE MADE. Can you imagine? Legislation about what any artist can and cannot create?

But as soon as it started to look like Al Gore would run for VP, Tipper backed off and Al, who'd previously been "supportive" of this censorship foolishness, pretended that he hadn't been. Deplorable. Disgusting. Had he admitted that he got caught up in the movement because his daughters were young and impressionable, and had he said that in that moment his "dad" instincts took over, he could have explained his change of position. But don't deny that special access to legislative machinery was the only reason the PMRC gained any traction at all. Bitch, please.

So. How about Canada? People move to Canada all the time, right? Toronto is a GREAT city...

(1) Purple Rain sales stats from CNN. 

(2) In one of those rare "Eureka" moments, something became clear about this Gore kid and what the big goddamned deal was in the first fucking place. Jay Leno had two of the Gore kids on during the campaign, talking about how great their dad is, and if you missed it, you missed the younger one telling Jay that her older sister was wild when she was a teenager. Staying out all night, sneaking around, damaging the car. A ha...I see. THIS is the girl that caused all that bullshit. She was a little slut that her mother couldn't control. Oh yeah, I'm sure it was because of SONG LYRICS.

(3) Frank Zappa quote from The Real Frank Zappa Book. Out of print, try half.com

The Vortex

This entry tells you all you need to know about The Vortex. Yep, it's twelve years later and I'm still in The Vortex. It whirls around me like a tornado of crazy chance.

The Vortex
(April 02, 2000, Diaryland)
 
Hub named it "the vortex" once he realized it was real. Pretty accurate moniker for the fact that coincidences of the most unlikely nature seem to ebb and swirl around me like concentric rings you get when you throw a pebble into a lake. Despite this and numerous other weirdnesses about me, he's stuck around for 7 years, poor man.

We've tested the vortex, and found that, for the most part, it's a measurable phenomenon. I think we first measured it when, driving back on a Sunday from my parents' house in Connecticut, we somehow fell into a discussion about the Trojan Horse and got around to wondering, what if it wasn't a horse? What if they'd built a Trojan Cow? Endless cow puns followed ("udderly ridiculous!" etc) and the topic played itself out until we were sick of each other. Not ten minutes later I espied, peering through the glare of the road and in glaring disbelief, what appeared to be an enormous cow in the roadway ahead. Gradually we overtook the behemoth and it was indeed a cow-- some evil, smiling plastic or fiberglass construction that required a huge trailer truck to haul it past our lives, leaving us gaping in stupid wonderment.

I think it was Hub's idea."Let's just pick a way-out there thing, something that has never touched our lives." I agreed. "How about, I dunno-- COLOSTOMY BAG."

The next Wednesday, we were listening to Opie and Anthony, a pair of nutjob DJ's on WAAF who've since been fired over a practical joke that went too far. They're in New York now where, apparently, the local government can take a joke. But I digress (sorry-- I do that). Since it was Wednesday, it was "Whip 'em Out Wednesday," meaning we women were supposed to unleash our lovely rosebuds for anyone who had a "W.O.W." bumpersticker. Opie and Anthony had added Whip 'em Out Wednesday to their week along with "Friday Fake-O," a bit in which women called the station and vocalized a fake orgasm. Anthony said that maybe it was too much, two days out of five with planned themes, "What's next, colostomy bag Tuesday?"

Happens all the time.

Why bring it up now? It's just that I haven't thought about that Australian agent of my pre-teen era, Rick Springfield, in years. Two days ago I entered his name in ebay for no good reason. I won Working Class Dog, the album that launched a thousand puberties. Well, tonight I went to Sky Bar to see the Boy Joys and Waltham, and as Waltham starts their set I'm thinking, "This is just like Rick Springfield. How can it be like Rick Springfield? I mean this song is JUST like a Rick Springfield song." Just then Ad leans over and says, "Whaddaya think? Rick Springfield?"

Why'm I surprised anymore.

Going, Going, Gone

I would like to start off the new archives by bringing back the first entry I ever published. This was posted on Diaryland on April 1st, 2000, but if memory serves I wrote it in December 1999. It just took four months to grow the balls to get a Diaryland account, and then what did I write about? ebay. And I'm happy to report that I don't have this problem anymore. (md, 15 August 2012)

Going, Going, Gone
(April 01, 2000)
 
I am addicted to ebay.

I don't mean I merely LIKE ebay-- I mean fix-needy, daily habit, intervention-worthy addicted.

I've decided that logging on to ebay is the cyber-equivalent of joining a music club or, say, slightly less of a paycheck-sucking vortex than going to Costco or BJ's Wholesale Club. If you're a member of any of these "it seemed like a good deal at the time" clubs, you know that one of your duties means having to explain your crap to your friends. Like, why I own a copy of the Pat Boone heavy metal CD? and why do I have 413 green plastic forks left over from last year's New Year's Eve party? "It's cheaper in the long run to buy the 500 pack," I seem to recall chirping ever-so-logically to Hub, whom I only bring along because he's 6' 4" and 200 lbs and can get his sinewy arms all the way around a gross of Charmin Extra Soft quilted toilet paper.

The thing about ebay, more specifically, about the crap I've been bidding on and sometimes "winning," these bits of music and nostalgia and oh-lord-deliver-me from the...COLLECTIBLE...I don't need it. Not a whit. Who needs it? Yesterday, I was perfectly content WITHOUT the Laverne & Shirley wristwatch, in fact I didn't even know such an item existed on the planet. Today, it makes all my dreams come true. Why?
Perhaps a more logical question is, how come there's so MUCH crap like this in the world? I'm a Taurus, I'm painfully logical. Then I get online.

Logic flung to the wind like a 1985 limited edition BJ and the Bear Frisbee, I feverishly log on to "my ebay," breathlessly scrolling through the auctions I'm bidding on, hoping to see green, green greeeeeeen...green text, as you know, means I'm "winning," or more accurately, Go. Go, to the post office for yet another money order and mail it to a total stranger somewhere in the bible belt, in exchange for...well, for what?

In some scary endeavor to enrich my life, I have now assumed ownership of a Littermaid Automatic Litterbox, a copy of Rick Springfield's "Working Class Dog" album, yes on vinyl and yes I have it on CD already, and a John Lennon doll. And most recently I have bid on-- and lost to others just as pathetic as me-- THREE A-Team lunchboxes, TWO Little Lulu dolls,and a tiny pair of red shoes and white socks that may or may not fit a Shirley Temple doll I already bought.

I know perfectly well that this is a symptom of something sinister, some evil that I'll have to reckon with someday.