Bamboozled

I really liked using the word "bamboozled" in my last post. Such a lively and active word. And so apropos to the citizens of the US. We can feel things crumbling around us (the environment, social safety nets), but politically it is too complex, and we are given so little information to help us get to the truth. Sometimes it feels like we are all being sold down the river. And according to Jeff Faux, the author of The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future and What It Will Take to Win It Back, that feeling is based on reality. It seems that the corporate elites don't have our welfare as their priority. What a surprise.

Faux explains how globalization is creating a new global political elite—"The Party of Davos"—who have more in common with each other than with their fellow citizens.  Their so-called trade agreements (like NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization act as a global constitution that protects only one kind of citizen—the corporate investor.  The inevitable result will be a drop in American living standards that will have dramatic political consequences. Faux concludes with an original strategy for bringing democracy to the global economy beginning with a social contract for North America. (EPI)

I saw Faux on Book Talk yesterday, and he contends that the standard of living for "ordinary" Americans will drop sharply in the next 4 or 5 years.

However technologically “new” the currently evolving economy turns out to be, it will not render obsolete questions of social justice and ecological sustainability, which can be addressed only collectively. Markets are humankind’s most powerful engines of economic growth. But engines need regulating mechanisms—gears, brakes, steering wheels—to make them useful. Similarly, markets need public institutions—central banks, labor protections, tax systems—to curb their tendencies toward excessive inequality and instability. As market engines change, the regulatory mechanisms must also change. History has shown that when these mechanisms do not work well, neither does the market. (Jeff Faux, Sustaining Long Term Growth, in Campaign for America's Future)

That is exactly what is missing, in my mind. The social contract we need to prevent unbridled capitalism from destroying the world.

Today’s economic policies will determine tomorrow’s economy and should therefore be based on an explicit vision of what we want tomorrow’s economy to look like. Thus, at the core of the economic policy debate is the question, What kind of future do we want to create for ourselves and those who will follow?

To those who believe in a market society, the question seems irrelevant: The future will be determined by the market. But if we believe in a market economy within a larger, democratic society, then the question, and the political implications of our responses to it, cannot be avoided. (Jeff Faux, Campaign for America's Future)

A Revised Twist

Picking at this post for a few days, I haven't been able to pull it together, whip it into shape. It starts running away from me, laughing, taking its own turn, revealing me to be narrow-minded and stupid. My mind spins.

At this point I accuse myself of not being able to finish any of these stories because I am a nihilist. But I immediately recognize that nothing is further from the truth. I believe in a great many things---so many in fact that the beliefs tend to cancel each other out. Good writers are successful because they can eliminate (at least in a given work) all but one possible way of seeing the world. They develop styles and structures because they are following through with this single vision. Robbe-Grillet's novels, for example, are the product of one particular way of looking at the world. As he was writing he was able to block from his mind the knowledge that during most of his life he sees the world in many different ways. If he looked at reality in his daily life as he does in his novels, he would never be able to do a single practical thing like catching a train or showing up for a speaking engagement on time. Is arrogant, spiritual narrowmindedness the essence of the writer? - (from "The Coal Shoveller", by Keith Fort in an anthology called Anti-Story, found on the 50-cent shelf at the library)

Making myself crazy the past few days thinking my one-sided thoughts about antagonist protagonist George W Bush, I remind myself that Presidents Day is obviously (still) the celebration of white males, the march of white "progress" in the USA, and if George W Bush has his way, the world. It is primarily a story about power and world dominance and like other dominant white males I have known, our president is a static character, a passive-aggressive daddy-boss, pleased with himself but constantly displeased with us, his children. And of course secretive, uncommunicative, withholding the necessary information with which we could defend ourselves. Damn, Daddy grounded us again. Wiretapping US citizens is for our own good. Taking away those unfair egalitarian social programs like medicare, medicaid, welfare, WIC, bankruptcy, student loans, funding for public education... is for our own best interest! Trust your daddy!

He abuses the weak and rewards those, like him, who already have more than they need. George W Bush is arrogant, uninformed, disconnected, unavailable, uninterested... just like any ol' abusive husband and father-villain. And the people he hurts the most support him the most forcefully. I have seen the midwest version of the old-boys' club at work. As long as there is uncontested power, the minor white characters (women and men) are protected and sheltered, but watch out people of color! You will be made the villains and scapegoats first, while white people play your parts. As you know, is very difficult for those in power to tell the difference between Italians and Native Americans. We have reached the place in the rising action where white men, feeling control slipping out of their grasp and trying to maintain a semblance of authority, go "on the warpath". One of my students proclaimed the other day that he "is patriotic, and to prove it he watches NASCAR". What can you say to that bit of insane dialogue? You must turn to humor, because comedy is the only safe way to talk about subjects the government has prohibited. They, like bumblingly hilarious but at the same time cruel and sadistic Inspector Clouseaus', are watching us. They secretly torture innocent people, you know. It is for our own good. It's all classified. No, not only in Iraq and not Guantanamo. It happens each day in prisons and reservations, filled with people of color, all across this great land.

OK. Come on, people. Look alive. Get into character! It's time to talk about setting.

Sports, politics, and religion are the three passions of the badly educated. They are the Midwest's open sores. Ugly to see, a source of constant discontent, they sap the body's strength. Appalling quantities of money, time, and energy are wasted on them. The rural mind is narrow, passionate, and reckless on these matters. Greed, however shortsighted and direct, will not alone account for it. I have known men, for instance, who for years have voted aquarely against their interests. Nor have I ever noticed that their surly Christian views prevented them from urging forward the smithereening, say, of Russia, China, Cuba, or Korea. And they tend to back their country like they back their local team: They have a fanatical desire to win; yelling is their forte; and if things go badly, they are inclined to sack the coach... (totally out of context, of course, from "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country", by William Gass in the same anthology)

The critics will no doubt bombard me. They will say to "get with the times". "The world has changed!" "Look how far minorities and women have come!" Postmodernism has toppled all the old structures. Sometimes it seems, though, that we haven't changed at all. The characters are wearing different masks, I think. Or maybe it's that the costumes have changed. But the anti-heroes are ruined. They have compromised too much. To get the good roles, we have sold our bodies and our minds. Our legs are constantly open, and George W is our pimp. Five, six times a day for the US of A. We don't know up from down, good from bad, life from death, truth from lies. We are numb, but we still mouth the dream, and groaning we build to a climax. (Sex sells!)

In closing, I'm sure this project will work. Please. Give it a try. I may have been a black and white thinker in the past, but give me a break. I've been bamboozled! My head is spinning! It is mere overcompensation by one who has been typecast for too long. Another thing that you may as well know about my character is that she has in her list of flaws the inability to befriend people who disagree with her, which makes her unnecessarily lonely. When the time comes for this dynamic character to confront this shortcoming it turns out to be pretty easy! She "happens on" this newspaper horoscope at a doctor's office, or maybe while waiting for a train:

Sagittarian Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman elected to Congress. While serving seven terms, she was an outspoken warrior who fought tirelessly for the rights of women, minorities, and the poor. 'My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear,' she said, 'is my mouth, out of which comes all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency.' Yet one of Chisholm's most famous exploits was her visit to segregationist politician George Wallace in the hospital after he was shot. Her supporters complained that she was consorting with the enemy, but years later it paid off. Wallace helped her win the votes of southern congressmen when she sponsored legislation to give domestic workers a minimum wage. Be like Chisholm this week, Sagittarius. Even as you open your big mouth to articulate controversial truths, reach out to those who disagree with you.

She glances at the others around her, all submerged in their own worlds and realizes that perhaps things aren't as they seem.

Still waiting for a twist ending, I hope that George W Bush doesn't accomplish total destruction of the environment before this is finished. And who knows? His seemingly weak and pathetic character may be exactly what we need to bring some "color" to a future Presidents Day. That is, if this story doesn't end in total annihilation. Who am I to see the wider picture?

I love predicting. Maybe George W Bush is our little Gollum, pathetic but necessary. And we, sitting in the impersonal glare of the waiting room, reading People magazine, submerged in our own little worlds, glance up together to see someone looking at us. We suddenly remember, like deja-vu all over again, that perhaps things aren't as they seem. This may be the beginning of the story. Perhaps we, at this moment in time, are passing through the narrative hook. We realize that all things change.

Will Do!

I am now beginning the third day of mid-winter break which is actually the start of the fourth day if you count Thursday (which I took off to appear in court to finalize my a, the divorce), which I do.

I do! Funny phrase, "I do," isn't it? Maybe on your wedding day saying, "will do" would be more effective. You know exactly the right inflection for these two words, don't you? Like, Q: "When you bring the supplies, pull the truck around to the back, ok?" A: "Will do." It says "I understand. No problem. I can do this. I cooperate." But not without an act of will. And it might set our orientation more realistically to the future as we're signing our lives away to one person.

I suppose "I don't" is my phrase right now, although that sounds so negative, like "I don't do housecleaning. There is no future in this phrase. No resonance, like "I do," which seems to ring like a bell. Perhaps a bell of doom, but a bell nonetheless. No one knows how to rightly inflect "I do". Do you say it dreamily? The wedding day is so serious (but with just the right mix of "joy", of course) and if you mess with the mix, the onlookers will think you are a smartass. Fuck it. We are so afraid of displeasing others, or ourselves. "I don't." Clunk.

After renting Hustle and Flow the other night, about a Memphis pimp trying to live his dream of becoming a rapper, Terrence Howard is on my list of favorites. He is so good. Then I watched Murderball, a documentary about quadriplegic rugby players. I have a lot of respect for these guys with "disabilities" who have much more determination and live fuller lives than most people I see.

And I bought The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (thanks, Gene) and am enjoying bits of it in bed each night. I love Haruki Murakami already, and am barely out of his alley and back gardens.

Hell, I even bought a series of Yoga DVD's and I've taken to exercising with Denise Austin. And I now own a big red exercise ball that sits brightly in the corner of my livingroom just waiting for me. It's almost like having a pet. I think I have everything I need.

After all, we are essentially alone, aren't we? Marriage doesn't change that, or book clubs, do they Mallory, or nights out with friends. That's all good, but sometimes we just need to feel the aloneness. Just feel it for what it is and not run away from it. It's not scary. It just is. And tomorrow? I "will do".

Fairy Tale Weather

Outside is like some fucking fairy tale, and I peer out the window at Hänsel and Grethel climbing over my fence. They have cut through my backyard again, something that Dolly would certainly frown upon. Why can't they use the sidewalk like everyone else? They litter all over the place. Fucking kids. Where are their parents? "The children must go; we will take them farther into the wood, so that they will not find their way out again."

It is foggy and warm in February, and the tree branches bend low, burdened with wet snow-turned-ice, heavy supplicants to my mood. This morning took me to court a married woman and spit me out a single one. Driving home, I zigzagged through slushy side streets as workers blocked my way with orange cones. The sight of downed power lines took me back to winters past, snow waist-deep, lost boots, the smell of singed shapeless wool mittens on a hot wood stove. The alarming exhileration of being bone-chilling sopping wet in winter. Girlhood. "Grethel wept bitter tears, and said to Hänsel, "Now all is over with us."

And Grethel walks on, a quiet uneasiness spreading before her like a wet shadow on the darkening street, bleeding down the hill and into the trees past the condos below. She walks. Past street lights blurred with freezing rain, past windows lit with radiant candles, electric bodies, love warmth. One step into the forest, and there will be no turning back. "Then they fell asleep and evening came and went, but no one came to the poor children."

Sitting on the front porch, though deaf and blind I hear thunder, see lightening in a gray pink sky with swirling snow and rushing wind, distant sirens and tornados in February. The trees, wild frenzied hysterical, shake heavy white snow onto my roof, my street, my world. The forecast is upside down, inside out, full of banging threats and wild promises. Who brings such a night as this? "The wind, the wind, The heaven-born wind."

Hänsel's bread is gone, and there is no one to come for me. I first arise, then go inside. Next I carry two boxes of matches to my bedside, after which I draw comfort from the mouse who busies himself in the back room. "Nibble, nibble, gnaw, Who is nibbling at my little house?"

"My tale is done; there runs a mouse; whosoever catches it, may make himself a big fur cap out of it."

February in the Garden

Happy Birthday

It's very strange being 100 years old. A new experience for me! You may think 100-year-olds don't enjoy new experiences, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The reality is, centenarians are the new youth.

Once upon a time (probably most of you weren't born yet), young people were the ones who instigated social change, who heralded new ideas and dreamed dreams for the future. Young people were the artists, writers and musicians who paved the way for new thought. They imagined a world where all people lived together in harmony, where children of the world belonged to and were cared for by every one of us, and where kindness and goodwill, especially for the weak, were the guiding force. That is difficult to comprehend, isn't it, you who have lived in a world whose leaders are liars and thieves, where greed is the guiding tenet of society and where the sick and hungry are cursed and left to die.

But take heart. Let go of your grip on all that you possess, release your fear and you will see a new vision on the horizon. You will be spectators of the most complete and stunning transformation the world has ever seen. It will bring with it an aromatic and beautiful atomic blast of change so devastatingly and annihilatingly complete that in an instant you will die, be reborn and for the first time feel something new. Call it your mother. Call it love. Call it the breast that suckles all living things. Call it you. Call it me.

And remember, it is brought to you by default and with no strings attached, by the new youth. The babies. The poets. The lovers. The wearers of rags. The misunderstood. The schizophrenic. The lonely. The distracted. The sublime. The centenarians.

color. air. breath. chaos.

Drag me along. C'mon
string
cord
twine will do

so pull.

fuck you if you aren't my soul man forever in regret, sexy agony, lone contemplation, unshaven, oblivious to the storm of color. air. breath. chaos. swirling about you inside you

and me
you pull.
you pull.
you pull.

motherfucker
beautiful boy
sexy drifter
C'mon

drag me a little
all fall down
string
cord
twine will do

You May As Well Know (Part 1)

I suppose I'll continue to do stupid things. More than once I have, after drinking too much wine, fallen backwards from a precarious seat, flat on my back. Once, while displaying my razor-sharp intellect I looked commandingly into the eyes of a respected friend and mispronounced the word "moot". As I recall, I have also mangled the word "indictment".

Maybe I'll be smarter now. I'm on my own, I have no one to counteract, no one to put in really good light next to my chronic faux pas. You may as well know, I am a moron when it comes to American or any other history. I have memory of learning not one thing in any history class. And I grew up in a hopelessly white trash environment. Unlike Holly Golightly, I was never able to transform myself into a glamorous socialite with a mysterious accent. I once, and not all that long ago, bought a suede jacket with fringe. Not to mention picking out glasses that look like thick black-rimmed aging-rat pack goggles.I did have the sense to take the jacket back, but seriously, where was my head?

I have no sense of direction and have never reached a new destination without getting hopelessly lost, and to read a map I have to turn it to match the direction in which I am driving. Is this a form of cognitive impairment or what?

(to be continued, no doubt)

Grit

What about that Miss Kitty? She sure can speak her mind. This is my conclusion after watching two back-to-back episodes of Gunsmoke yesterday. Yesiree, Miss Kitty had grit. She owned her own business, sat at the table with the men and matched them shot-for-shot. She was as good as one of Marshall Matt Dillon's "boys", and feminine to boot. It took some strength to hold up those eyelashes of hers. Everybody respected her. Hell, her tavern was like a fucking kitchen and she was the mother hen with all the boys coming in for comfort. She saw into their souls, too. After the very young "Midnight Cowboyish" John Voight accidentally killed someone's wife (it was the wife's fault!), she knew by intuition that he was a good boy, and she protected him from the evil rich neighboring town's power broker, who just happened to be the murdered woman's husband. Festus, hell, he'd do cartwheels for Miss Kitty, squinting one eye at anybody who crossed her. Doc was her co-conspirator. And didn't you just want Marshall Dillon to throw her on a beer-stained table and fuck her brains out?

And what about that Stella, the bar-owner in Silverado? A heart of gold. And grit? She'd take care of you, yes she would, and she wouldn't care what anybody said. She knew her mind. She was the gun-totin mom, the whiskey-drinking protector of the town, the liberated woman who patiently waited for her chance to fight evil. And she took it. She found her Matt Dillon in the form of Kevin Kline, and she stuck with him. Dying? Shit, who cares.

Ok, here's another one. Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead. She was a man, encompassing all of the qualities that define one. She had compassion, but transcending that, she had cold determination, and that transcended self-protection. She was beyond grit, and suddenly you realized what chaps were made for.

And the bad guys? Men. Weak, power-driven and sadistic, Brian Dennehy and Gene Hackman were beautiful antagonists. Simply fantastic. Irrepressible sociopaths. Sexy. Maybe Miss Kitty could have made them see the error of their ways. She would have set them down and talked some sense into them. Or sent them upstairs with one of her "girls", who would bring them round and make them "care" again. Miss Kitty gave whores a good name. She knew the power of being a man.

Broken Record

It seems that Reverend Mykeru, Gidget's dreamboat, has melted down. Totally. Gotten himself into a tizzy. Lost all self control! Whew. The things you see in the blogosphere. Well, I will be waiting for his reconstruction. Unfortunately, I have a feeling things are gonna get worse before they get better.

Have you ever lost it over a lover? I once broke a McDonald & Giles album after finding my college boyfriend in bed with another girl. He got her pregnant, she had an abortion and she came to his house for consolation. Standing at his bedroom door, I gave them both a beer, acted like nothing was wrong, everything was cool. I was open, I shared, it's cool, it's cool. It's cool! Then I went back to my dorm room and flew into a fucking rage. Jesus! I felt guilty, maybe for being a woman. For being alive. For being Dolly's daughter. For being jealous.

Holy fucking shit. Possession is one hell of a burden. Soon my divorce will be final. It has taken almost four years to realize that I have done it again. Surprise! I discovered the lover, I offered the beer, I flew into a fucking rage, I felt guilty for being me, I fell apart. It's cool, I'm open, it's cool. I I held on I retreated I ranted I twisted I turned I wiggled on my belly like a reptile I felt guity I was jealous I deconstructed I broke the motherfucking record.

Veronica, how can my life be ok? How can I find enthusiasm? How can I remember to turn off the stove, lock the door, be afraid? Being afraid takes so much energy. What about manicures? I can't do that, Veronica, I tried. The upkeep of being in the middle wears me fucking out. So I give it up. I give it up now. All of it.

The world is now covered in white. Overnight the drip drip drip of unseasonal warmth ceased, and icy winds began to blow through the trees outside my window. Under the streetlight snow swirls nicely, caught in a dark VanGogh sky, in quiet slow beauty, cold dispassion.

Heartland

Tonight while contemplating the neighbors' blindingly reflective multi-colored gazing balls, positioned carefully on their otherwise flat treeless lawn, I was struck again by the inevitability of human extinction.

My neighbors, true midwesterners, believe that "cleanliness is next to godliness", and have reported me, once again, to the "Housing Enforcement Specialists", those brave city employees who uphold decency, morality and high resale value in our neighborhoods through the enforcement of trimming, raking, hauling, removing, making uniform and (of course) spraying with chemicals. The brush pile has got to go. No "stuff" allowed. I must scrape, paint, haul, remove, make uniform. In 30 days.

We in the heartland are perpetually an inch away from hysteria, I think. The neighbors saw logs, resting up for another day of mad surveillance. On a typical day on my street, the schizophrenic woman who lives on the corner and arranges rocks in the shape of peace signs along her cluttered yard is yelled at by the fastidious gay man who lives across from her. She then blocks his driveway with her truck. The retired republican widow wants all the trees in the world cut down. The sexual molester next door paints his fucking tree trunks white and dreams of boobies! boobies! boobies! The Buddhist wannabee across the way skulks around in blissful walking meditation, quietly demanding community spirit from us all. The teacher on the corner petitions to keep students out of the neighborhood. No rental property! No hooligans! No "others"! The hyperventilation of sameness. Ha. Try to create heaven and you will get hell. From my little piece of paradise, I say come on in! Laugh and have fun. Make some noise! Burn some couches, for christssake!

In the night raccoons rummage in overturned garbage cans. I hear an animal pad gently across the roof above me. The phone rings at 3am, a blocked number. I listen to the drip drip drip of water leaking from the ceiling in the back room, rhythmically hitting the concrete floor on this unseasonably warm February night.