santacarnage at the anticon

The costumed event started at noon when we met at the Paul Bunyan statue off of a North Portland Max stop.  We were a motley crew of men and women dressed in all sorts of holiday garb.  There were of course the traditional red-coated santas, but there were also people dressed as gnomes, elves, and one gentlemen wearing nothing but tye-dye long johns and a huge grin.  Many of the women wore variations of the santa suit with skirts and scarves as adornments.  Any santa with revealing clothing was immediately dubbed as sexy santa.  A few men had pimp santa garbs with velour capes and furry hats.  I wore a white top-hat and a red mask and was given the pseudonym of bandito santa.  Keegan wore a USC hat and a trailblazers jersey and took on the name of sporty santa. 

  There’s something about wearing a costume that makes any party better.  First off, costumes lend an otherworldly feeling to any event.  A costume indicates that it isn’t business as usual.  Because everyone looks strange it allows us to step outside the normal boundaries our superegos impose upon us.  People do not look as they usually do which inspires people to no act as they normally do.  We can be more fun, crazy, impulsive, etc (and a little alcohol doesn’t hurt either) Appearing differently makes you feel different.  Also, wearing costumes gives everyone in a group a sense of solidarity, a feeling that we are all part of a club.  Maybe you’re afraid to talk to a guy at a bar but if you’re both wearing one-piece track suits and leg warmers then a stressful sitiuation morphs into a humorous one.  As strangely attired individuals we are vulnerable to mockery by the general public but as a strangely attired group we can stand in solidarity and laugh in the faces of the sober, boring majority.  Recently I attended the most recent manifestation of a yearly event called Santacon.  This variation was called Anti-Con and took place Saturday, December 5^th in North Portland.  The sites were extraordinary, the people were outrageous, and the level of holiday cheer and drunkenness was incomparable to anything else that has ever been or will ever be.     

The excitement was palpable underneath the statue. Waves of santas would disembark from the MAX train and cross the street to congregate below the statue.  At its climax there were several hundred costumed inviduals, including a lone woman dressed as a dreadle.  Periodically the crowd would start to yell and cheer or someone would start a chant of “ho-ho-ho,” which would rapidly ascend in speed and volume. hand, I could feel that this was going to be a great day, looking out at the crowd under crisp, sunny Portland skies, holding my bag of treats filled with candy and condoms in one hand and a bottle of crown royal, hanging in a purple bag with gold strings in the other.

Keegan and I took some celebratory pulls from the crown as we walked down interstate towards our first watering hole.  The place was packed with santas.  We looked with dismay at the array of red coats and red hats all facing the bar and wondered how we would ever order a drink in time before the next stop.  Fortuitously a santa close to the door had ordered one too many whiskey and cokes and gave us one, “here you go, Santa,” the man said, handing us a drink.  “Thank you santa,” I replied. 

This was the first of many cordial greetings we shared with other santas.  A sense of old fashioned manners juxtaposed the usual belligerance of hard-core drunkenness, at the anticon.  As we walked through crowds at each bar people were exceedingly polite, always delivering an, “excuse me santa,” as they pushed their way towards the bathroom or the bar.  As I said, we were all in this mad project together. 

Our fears of not being able to order a drink turned out to be unfounded as we found our way to the front of the line at the bar in under 20 minutes.  Since it was still early in the day we decided to order a breakfasty drink of white Russians.  Feeling like a true Lebowskian I greeted some santas with a ‘hey dude’ as we sipped our drinks and surveyed the crowd.  A pirate santa walked past us holding a treasure chest.  I asked him what he was carrying and he showed me a display of several bottles of liqueur nestled in the chest, his personal stock of pirate bootie.  Throughout anticon people blatantly took outside drinks into bars.  Many indulged in drink while walking the street, and I met an underage santa who got into all the bars without trouble.  It appears that Saint Nick is above the law. 

After leaving the first bar we doubled back around to a neighborhood street close to our meetup spot.  People start proclaiming, “we’re going to the mayor’s house.”  At this point I’m getting a bit drunk and feeling confused.   ‘Does the mayor live in North Portland?’ I think to myself.  We stop outside a non-descript house and some santas jump onto the balcony and start cheering.  Another santa climbs a tree.  We begin ho-hoing again and the street is completely overrun with santas at this point.   

I can’t tell if this is really the mayor’s house or some poor, unfortunate sap whose front porch and privacy we were invading, but regardless, it was pretty damn funny.

Our walk to the next bar is a long one and I try to entertain my fellow santas with Christmas carols.  However, my voice is far from melodic and my recollection of lyrics is poor.  I often break down into unintelligible mumbles or humming to replace many of the lyrics that I have forgotten.  On the walk Keegan and I talked to a couple ‘colorful characters.’  One fellow told us that we had to check out the naked bunny ride on Easter (riders wear bunny tails and ears) and another santa told us she enjoyed the pleasures of glory holes (turn off your safe search features if you search that term on google)

At the next bar we ordered gin and tonics and sipped them while chatting with a guy about South by Southwest, a music festival in Austin.  I hung out with a reindeer too.  We bonded big-time. 

 

The next bar we went to was small so we decided to skip ahead to another drink station when we saw several santas pass us by.  This whole process reminded me of the Portland Bridge pedal where you stopped for refreshments at different locations to gain strength for the journey ahead, but, instead of water and bananas, we were fueling up with whisky, cigarettes, and chocolate candy. 

The next place was really hopping.  Santas lounged out in the parking lot smoking cigarettes, drank beers inside, and ate food at the tables.  We met a rotund she-santa who proclaimed ‘a merry Christmas to all.’  I ordered Keegan and I cans of Hamm’s as at this point I think we had quite enough hard alcohol.  I proceeded to spill my beer all over a pool table.  At this point in our journey our friend Sam met up with us, fresh from taking the LSAT’s.  He was dully impressed by our exceedingly inebriated states at 3-30 in the afternoon.  Out in the parking lot I found a wonderful gentlemen selling some of santa’s special cookies.  I purchased two for a quite reasonable price and split the first between the three of us.  The second cookie was eaten at around 1 am that night in an example of very poor decision-making.  Santa’s got one hell of a sweet tooth!

The next stop on the trek required a quick ride on the MAX train.  There was a short but heated debate among my esteemed colleagues about whether or not we should buy tickets.  Keegan and I had great confidence in the power of our costumes to get us out of any legal trouble and so we were of the opinion that tickets were not necessary on that day.  “There’s enough santas to take this city down!” I cried.  Sam, more rational and more sober at this point decided to buy a MAX ticket.

Our next stop is The Alibi, which, we are informed by another santa, is the only ‘real’ tiki bar in Portland.  But the doors are locked when we arrive.  Apparently, this tiki bar didn’t want a bunch of belligerant santas glugging down mojitos at their establishment.  What followed was 20 minutes of confusion interspersed with some pistachio munching and crown guzzling.  After a consultation of my trusty iphone maps feature we  relocated ourselves and took off for the next stop, the Mississippi food carts.

 

Pizza and beer, a combination for the ages!  At the food carts we ran into a Scottish documentary film maker, an anarchist santa, and a cigarette bumming Jesus.  It was the last stop on our tour and my memories are quite fuzzy, but from what I remember, we had a great time.  Inside we played a round of quarters.  We co-opted a fellow who was sitting at our table to play as well.  I’m not sure if we made any of our shots and some time into the game our table partner told us, “I just want to enjoy my fucking drink.”  I guess some of us were losing our Christmas cheer.  At some point I drop my bag of goodies, spilling candy and condoms everywhere.  A pint glass that I had stashed away also fell out, spreading glass all over the floor.  After picking up my possessions I popped a couple Hershey kisses into my mouth.  Chewing them they felt a bit more crunchy than normal. I started to fear that some of the glass shards had gotten into the candy but once I pop something sweet into my mouth I never go back, glass shards or no.  Well there was more beer to be drunk and we visited another food cart corner and well, you get the point…  

Well that’s about all that’s fit to print on this year’s anti-con.  It was a smashing success and I hear there’s another santa crawl on the 19^th.  I might just have to bust out the suit one or two more times before the holiday season wraps up.  Ho-ho-ho to you all and happy Chanukah too.         

     

stories told to me

I’m originally from Denver but it wasn’t until I got to LA that I got into drugs. I was a drug dealer before that but I didn’t do the drugs. Well, except for the ecstasy and the acid and the shrooms. But when I got into LA I started doing meth. I’m not going to lie to you like some other guys do and tell you that I’m so glad that I’m off of it and it was terrible. It was fucking awesome! The girls, the parties, staying up all night. I miss it every day. I would get meth so good it would burn a hole through the bottom of the plastic bag.

Everyone I knew growing up was wealthy. I grew up in a completely excessive environment. Some kids from my school would get their blood drawn and then do a bunch of coke afterwards so that they would get really fucked up. Their systems would be weak from the loss of blood so they would get totally tweaked on not as much blow as they would normally take.

There are tons of ways to buy weed in San Francisco and I know most of them. I was showing some kids around town a few weeks ago. We were walking around Golden Gate Park and I bet them that I could find pot in less than 5 minutes. It actually took around a minute before someone approached us asking if we wanted some nugs. I ended up trading him my jacket that I had bought at goodwill for some herb. Back in high school I used to buy from these asian kids. They would pick me up in their tricked out street-racer cars and we would tear around the city Fast and the Furious style while we did the deal. My favorite way to get pot now is the delivery services. You call this number and you get weed delivered right to your place. He shows up at your door with it in a brown paper bag. Several times the pot would show up at the house at the same time as the pizza guy. One-stop-shop!

I took a trip out to Jersey to visit some friends. It was fun, 5 days of straight partying. One of the nights we went out to the bars. We were standing on the balcony of a bar smoking cigarettes. My best friend’s friend, Danny was with us. She has a little kid so she doesn’t get to go out drinking much. She was really drunk off just a few drinks. There were some cops standing by their cars outside the bar and She just started screaming at them “pigs! Fucking pigs!” I couldn’t believe it. Then the cops came up to the balcony and started talking to me. They thought I was the one who was yelling at them. They took me down to their car and put me in the backseat. I was freaking out. I had two grams of coke on me and I was pretty drunk and blow which wasn’t helping my nervousness. I would be totally screwed if they caught me with it. That’s when I remembered that I also had 3 ecstasy pills on me that I was planning on giving to my friend. I was thinking ‘shit, what do I do? How do I get rid of this?’ At this point my hands were cuffed in front of me so I could still use them. I dug into my purse and pulled out the coke. All I could think was that I had to get rid of it. I opened the bag and started eating it. But I couldn’t get it all in cleanly and some of it spilled on the seat. The seats were black plastic and the powder was easy to spot. That’s when the cops came back in and trained their flashlights on the seat. They saw the powder and asked me about it. I had to admit what I had done. That’s when the Jersey cops went off on me. They started saying things like “you’re a fucking ugly person. You need to get back to Los Angeles. You’re ugly and disgusting.” At this point I was really freaked out, drunk, and coked out of my mind. I was crying and crying. Then they let me go. That was it, they just let me off and they never searched my purse for the ecstasy. The coke I at eventually hit me hard. I couldn’t even talk really, I was kind of emitting these high pitched squeaking sounds. I stayed up all that night.



Dude, don’t ever hook up with a hot chick. That’s one piece of advice I can give you. It’s not worth it. They try to pull all sorts of shit. Alice told me that we could only have sex once a week because she didn’t love me. Then she complained that it hurt when we had sex. She made me get her warm clothes after we did it. That doesn’t seem normal.

We were at a party and Sasha was wasted. She walked up to me and she told me, “you’re so cute. I really want to make out with you right now.” So I was like ‘alright, I guess I’ll make out with you’, so we did. She was so wasted and she was squeeling and shrieking, and she asked me to go back to her room, and I said that sounded fine to me. So we went back to her room. We were hooking up on her bed. She’s still so drunk, rolling around. I’m getting kind of bored so after a while I steel up the courage and say in my deepest voice, “so, you wanna fuck?” But she doesn’t answer me because she’s passed out. She starts snoring and I gather up my stuff and quietly leave.

My wife could beat me up. She’s a big lady. She’s got some guns on her. She’s Latino too which means she uses her shoes as weapons. There could be two closed doors between us and she would still manage to hit me in the head with her flip-flop.

When I was a young guy my friends and I loved talking to strange women. I had the prefect pick up line. Most pick up lines are cheesy and I don’t believe they work but this one was golden: “Hi my name is Eli do you want to go swimming tonight?” It sets the perfect tone. Your not asking to date them or do something serious. It’s a fun, simple activity, and it involves taking off your clothes! I always lived in apartments so we had access to pools and hot tubs. When I lived in Arizona my friends and I all financed scooters. We found a place that would let you put $17 down and $17 a month. We would ride around town on our scooters with flip-flops and board shorts. It was so easy to pick up girls with the swimming line. We didn’t even need to stop the scooters, they would jump on as we rode past.
“Come swimming with us,” we would say.
“But I don’t have a swimsuit.”
“It doesn’t matter, neither do I.”
“But your wearing one.”
“oh yeah. Whatever, let’s go.”
I actually met my wife with the swimming line.

Last Friday my friends and I drove into downtown Portland to go to one of our regular bars, the Tube. The Tube is located in the Chinatown neighborhood next to a nightclub with stripper poles called Dirty and a nightclub with a mechanical bull called Dixey. This area has one of the highest densities of clubs and bars in Portland. It also has the highest density of homeless people. (They used to be called bums, vagabonds, and wastrels in less sensitive times. Now some people suggest that it is more appropriate to refer to them as the housing challenged.)

Homeless are drawn to chinatown because there are many shelters and soup kitchens in this area and because it is a prime spot for panhandling. There is a lot of foot traffick, and most of these walkers have disposable income and are intoxicated, two factors which make panhandling at least marginally profitable in this area.

On this particular night we were walking past a bus stop on Burnside and second. While we were waiting for the light to turn a man at the bus stop turned to me and asked if I could spare some change. I noticed that, at the same time he was asking me for money, he was sending a text message on his iphone. Obviously this man was not housing challenged, unless he mortgaged his house for the opportunity to check his e-mail and facebook on the go. Reflexively I replied, “sorry man.” This is my normal response when people hit me up for cash. Generally I don’t give money to people who on the street because it doesn’t seem fair to give to some and not others, and I’m certainly not forking over cash to everyone who asks me for some. A moment after I delivered my knee-jerk response my mental gears started spinning and I asked myself, “why does a guy with an iphone need money from me?” Galvanized by the absurdity of this situation I turned around and asked him, “So, how much money are you trying to get? Do you have bus fare?”

“Naw man,” he said. “I need to get $1.50 for the bus.”

“Well good luck” I told him as the signal changed and we crossed the street.

Later in the night after enjoying a set of house beats and classic hip-hop tunes by resident dj, Dr. Adam, my friends and I stepped outside for a cigarette. We were approached by a man in a wheelchair who asked us if we could spare a dollar. One of my friends reached in to his wallet and handed him a dollar. My curiosity piqued by my earlier encounter with the man at the bus stop I decided to question this fellow about his life and his needs. One always assumes that a panhandler is either using the money you give him for necessities like food or to feed another necessity for some people, a drug addiction. But after the iphone encounter I realized that there could be a multitude of reasons for panhandling such as being unprepared for practical concerns. Maybe some people start panhandling because they’re bored and then realize that they have a talent for it. I could even imagine panhandling as a dating strategy, “hey you got a dollar? While you’re at it can I get your number too?” But, let’s put hypotheticals aside and get back to the dialogue…

ME: It’s pretty cold out here isn’t it?

Dude: Yeah, it is, really cold.

ME: Do you have a place to sleep tonight?

Dude: No, no I don’t.

ME: Are there shelters around here where you can sleep?

Dude: Yeah there is but there’s long lines and you have to wait hours to get in.

ME: Wow, that’s a long time. You have to wait for hours?

Dude: Yeah, well like an hour. They fill up fast.

ME: And are there places you can get food?

Dude: Yeah, there’s cafeterias. But they don’t have much variety.

ME: What do you prefer, eating at those places or panhandling.

Dude: Panhandling. They don’t give you any selection at those places. You have to eat what they serve, noodles and sauce. When I panhandle I get to eat what I want.

ME: What’s your favorite place to eat?

Dude: Izzy’s. I love Izzy’s. Ten bucks and you get all the pizza and ice cream you can eat.

Me: Oh, yeah that’s a good deal. How about Chipotle, do you like Chipotle?

Dude: Naw, it’s ok. I at there yesterday and they don’t put that much meat in their burritos.

…

At this point my friends had finished smoking and were headed back into the bar so I cut the conversation short. I wished the man a good night and returned to the music and merriment.

I’ve found recently that it’s pretty fun to strike up random conversations with folks, especially folks that have a lot of time on their hands. People that aren’t in a hurry give you detailed and sometimes personal stories. Often these can be people in service capacities such as waiters, cashiers, and people who give out free samples. My friend Shoshone liked to chat up people who campaigned for political campaigns and religious groups. These people can be pretty interesting but you have to be able to not be bothered by their constant attempts to convert you or conscript you.

This particular conversation gave me some more insight into poverty and its many forms. Firstly, there is visible poverty and invisible poverty. The most visible poverty is that which is right in front of your face. The man who stands in front of you asking for a quarter or a dollar. But there are many forms of invisible poverty. I didn’t encounter any of the homeless people that night who chose to sleep in shelters because they were already inside for the night. There are also many people who are poor to the point that they cannot afford food or other basic needs but who have some form of housing, often provided by relatives. There are those that are too proud for charity, who will not ask for help even when they need it. Then there are others who are working poor. Perhaps they have enough money to make ends-meet but are living in bad environments or in pain. One of my coworkers at Jakes has been catering for 30 years. He has persistant shooting pains traveling from his right hand to his right elbow which are a direct consequence of carrying heavy trays over and over and over again. But, without health insurance, there’s little he can do to treat his injury.

Another point that really hit home after talking with this man was that panhandling is a lifestyle choice. Perhaps not in cities like Los Angeles where social services do not provide much support for the poor, but in liberal cities like Portland where there are plenty of agencies who provide for the needy, someone panhandles because they choose to. One can some obvious examples of this walking past Powell’s books on Burnside. There’s often a woman who juggles balls and scarves or a man who wears punk clothes with patches and has a cat on a leash. I would guess that these young people come from relatively stable and prosperous families but are attracted to the idea of floating around from city to city, living hand-to-mouth and day-to-day. These are the Kerouacian panhandlers. My buddy Ben informed me that they are called ‘Crusties.’ Once winter and its attendant rains arrive they quickly disappear from the streets, probably back to their parent’s basements.

Eat your Hearts Out

Consumption is a topic that I’ve discussed on this blog before. Consumption is an important topic here and now for several reasons. Firstly, because we are Westerners and Americans we are consumers so it is important to define our consumption niche. Companies court us with their advertisements every day to try to get us to consume their brand of goods. It’s nice to know what brands fit your own personal sense of culture and style so that, even if you are giving in to the consumer-commodity culture you are doing so intentionally and with a purpose. Secondly, consuming well is important to good health. If you consume too little you can become weak, meager, and dull. If you consume too much you can become corpulent, unhealthy, and physically and emotionally dependant on the materials you consume.

I was at a dinner party a few days ago and a friend mentioned that he was eating more than usual, that his appetite seemed insatiable in recent weeks. Several other people in the room commented that this was the case for them as well. It was postulated by the group that this increase in appetite coincided with the weather turning colder. We decided that, perhaps, everyone eats more in the winter. We all put on a protective layer of flubber for the winter months. Our holiday menus reflect this habit. Thanksgiving is full of fattening foods like pumpkin pies, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Christmas is also a fat man’s dream with lots of baked goods, cinnamon buns, and stocking stuffers filled with jelly beans, rolos, and other amazing, teeth rotting substances.

Perhaps this urge to pork out in the winter is embedded in our genetic code. It was the monkeys who were able to increase their caloric intake and put on a protective layer of fat that were able to survive the winter months. Those skinny, Paris Hilton-esque monkeys must have died off pretty quickly once the first frost hit. However, this might only apply to those who live in a climate that gets cold in the winter. Southern Californians are doomed to be tanned and thin all year round. You poor bastards.


Since I’m no longer a college student (well technically its been 11 months since I’ve been enrolled in school but I’m still basking in the afterglow god-dammit!). I’ve been trying to be a little more discriminating with my consumption patterns. It’s nice to have one’s own tastes and preferences and stick to them. My friend Wolf is a perfect example of someone who knows what he likes and sticks to it. He drinks Whiskey and smokes spliffs and rarely strays from those habits. I respect someone who doesn’t have the attitude that any commodity of any variety will suffice as long as it fills your stomach or gets you ‘fucked up.’

I try to drink good beer when I drink beer. Being in Oregon is great for this habit since we have such an amazing selection of microbrews. Along with drinking nice beer should come an increased knowledge of what one is drinking. I want to know what the difference between a port, lager, and a stout is. I’ve also bought a book on bartending and mixed drinks which I hope will inform me more about the world of spirits. Despite this I am still intimidated to order a mix drink at a bar unless I am sure exactly what it’s ingredients are.

Last week I went to a sake tasting and sampled several varieties of the drink which, this is news to me, is traditionally served cold. I would like to take some tours of distilleries and breweries in Portland if anyone elese is interested. Eventually I might even get around to food and cook a meal one of these days!

I think my musings about food and consumption have been motivated by my employemt in the food and hospitality industry. At Jake’s we serve some expensive and rarified foods such as salmon with dungeonesse crab, oysters on a half shell, pork belly with bean cassoulet, and crème anglais (fancy word for ice cream) with seasonal berries. As a server I get to sample all of it. Some of it is great and some of it isn’t. The people who have been serving at Jakes the longest complain about the food the most. “Not stuffed salmon again, I’m so sick of that.” When you consume a luxury almost every day it ceases to be a luxury and starts to be a chore.

I have analyzed my own pattern of consumption using the handy device that I call ‘my portable psycho-analyzer.’ I have noticed that I really enjoy giving myself what I like to call ‘treats.’ In Spanish the word for dessert is ‘postre.’ It has the word-root post meaning afterwords. I enjoy food or drink when I perceive it as an extra or as something in addition to the merely sufficient. Rarely do I eat dinner and then not think, “hmmm, what else can I enjoy?” Whether this be a beer, an ice cream, some chocolate, or a smoke depends on the night. I like the word postre and its accompanying connotations better than dessert. The word dessert makes me think of someone getting ‘their just desert’. It brings to mind the idea that we deserve dessert or that it is part of the ordinary, necessary, and sufficient. I prefer to think of it as living in beautiful excess. The postre is a sign of culture and a symbol of a life of leisure.

A Loving Hate

There’s a band I like called She Wants Revenge. Their most famous song is called ‘Tear you apart.’ The lyrics discuss the ways in which the lead singer is going to literally tear an unnamed woman apart. The refrain of the song goes something like this, “I want to hold you close, soft breath beating heart, as I whisper in your ear, I want to fucking tear you apart.”

Undoubtedly the song has violent undertones. Many people have complained about the song’s lyrics. They assert that, beyond being violent, the song is also misogynistic, in that it encourages violence towards women. I, however, have a different interpretation of the song. I think the urge to tear the woman apart that the singer expresses is not a violent urge but a sexual urge and it is an urge that the singer feels but would never literally follow through with.

I would argue that the urge to rip his lover asunder is a product of the attraction the singer feels to the woman rather than any sort of antipathy. I think most people have had feelings similar to what the singer describes. Freud defined our most basic motivators to action as eros and thanatos, love and hate. They are not bipolarities but are actually closely related in the human psyche. When we feel really passionate about someone being physically close or intimate doesn’t seem to be enough. Our passionate feelings boil over into violent ones. The urge to rip your partner apart, to tear them asunder, to claw them into shreds is a common emotion. In Punch Drunk Love Adam Sandler’s character expresses his love by saying that Freud when he stated that love and hate are closely related and are drawn from the same force. They are both primal passions. It is an almost inevitable seek more and more personal and intense ways to express our love. Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thorton both famously carried vials of each other’s blood around in order to express their love. It is a common practice among close friends to commemorate a friendship by trading blood. Some people get tattoos of their lovers names engraved on them. It is as if these people are proving their devotion through a rite of pain.

Along with a desire for pain we also have a desire to be subsumed. By subsumption I mean this as a process where we lose our own ego feelings. We lose our ideas of ourselves and our ability to rationally process thoughts. We become one with our exteriority. Freud referred to this as the feeling of the sublime which he called “oceanic” in nature. I knew a woman who told me that when she has sex she likes to literally be pressed so hard that she cannot breath. This is an expression of the desire to lose oneself in the passion of the moment.. In the famous Greek work on love, ‘The Symposium’ one character describes a myth in which, back in the misty annals of time, men and women were fused together at the hip. These joint creatures had both sets of genetalia. The act of sex, according to this myth, is our attempt to recombine into our original configuration. No matter how hard we push and shove and try to squeeze ourselves back together, the link is doomed to be incomplete and ephemeral. I always liked this image of two people futilely rubbing against each other in an attempt to create something that has been lost forever. As single human beings we have definite physical and emotional boundaries, walls which act as boundaries between us and the rest of the world. But, during sex those boundaries are partially dissolved.

Parables I created while stuck in a cubicle 3 months ago

parables:


Traveling is better done with other people.

Trust people until they break that trust, then don’t trust them again

Coffee is extremely addicting

I can be as disciplined as I want to be

Don’t be too complacent but don’t be in too much in a hurry either

Sex doesn’t make everything ok; it just makes everything a lot better

Offices are soul-sucking places which inspire gossiping, backstabbing, lovehandles, and flabby asses

If you constantly move from place to place then people will miss you and treat you better than if you are dependably around all the time

Don’t be ashamed of your shortcomings, they are probably also your strengths

The law never really does anything, and when it does manage to do something it is entirely inadequate and required way more work and bullshit then it was worth.

Environmental law is a joke. We brutally demolish more forests with needless copying and endless boxes of documents than construction companies ever will building houses.

Pretend to be confident and others will believe you are and, eventually, they will trick you into believing it too.

People don’t usually surprise. Most follow routines and those that don’t follow routines don’t follow them routinely.

Don’t try to be everything to everyone but try to be something to someone.

College is a rare environment, hopefully you took advantage of it.

You aren’t a drug addict or an alcoholic, you are a college student, and soon you won’t be one, but will you be the other?

Being afraid of having a social phobia isn’t the same as having a social phobia.

Being sensitive and neurotic had its downsides but I also miss it. Insensitivity and pragmatism are comfortable but more predictable and less creative.
There we were on the brink of salvation and despair.


poetry:

Sweaty circles dancing

Lunacy noises in the night

Two figures cut morbid silhouettes in the night

Creeping



Beats dripping base like a Novocain dream

The crowd raised their hands, extended fingers jabbing sky

Electronics, lasers, pastels, big belt buckles, tribal paint, funny vests, feathers and body glitter

and the two slithery shapes tapped their feet,

so sly, lurking and creeping



chills are running up spines

sweat puddling, running in rivulets

it’s what the party runs on, its steam and its engine

the motor of the thing is that human feeling

the crowd howls and squeels

bodies shake and brains shiver

behind frosted sunglasses four eyes stare as four legs lightly pump

those two slinky fellows straight creeping


there's the creeps among humans like vampires amidst mortals

blood suckin, bass humpin...scene feelin, adrenaline stealin

Greyhound diaries pt 2

So there we were, stuck in Medford Oregon, at a truck stop, on Christmas eve, with nothing to do and no idea of when we would be rescued from this strange limbo. Most of the greyhound passengers stepped off the bus and lit up cigs, smoking and bitching about the crappy situation we were in. At the time I didn’t smoke so Sean and I stood outside with our hands stuffed in our pockets, complaining like the rest of them. Our breath steamed in plumes from our mouths and the ground was littered with piles of white snow. I looked at these little clumps of precipitation and cursed them for putting us in this situation. What I should have been cursing, however, was Oregon law. Everyone knows bus and truck drivers are all cranked out on methamphetamines anyway, why not let them drive overtime?



In the next several hours I became intimately aware of my surroundings. The truck stop had a fairly extensive mini-mart and Sean and I spent several hours checking out their wares; snow-globes, stereos, mini statues of deer and wolves, postcards, auto supplies, and tons of junk food and drinks. There was also a taco bell and subway attached where I spent some cash on excitingly named but terribly crafted food items like crunch wrap Supremes and veggie delights.



I felt the worst for the passengers who had to manage their kids. There was no way to keep children entertained in these dismal surroundings. The kids of a single mom who were sitting in the seat across from us on the bus ran wild around a little arcade, spinning the steering wheel around on the racing game and pounding on the glass of the ‘claw’ machine, hoping that this would result in one of the stuffed animals falling out. The mom paid little attention to her children’s antics. She was only roused from her own reverie if it appeared that one of her kids was annoying or harassing another passenger, and even then this was no guarantee that her parenting instincts would take over. On the bus her kids were rough-housing and screaming and she would delegate her parental duties to her eldest son, telling him to ‘shut them up.’ She spent most of her time playing snake on her cell phone. When the kids got really out of hand her discipline techniques mostly revolved around threats such as “you guys better shut up right now or,” “when we get to grandma’s house, I’m gonna beat your asses bad.”



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Eventually Sean and I had exhausted all the entertainment options at the truck stop. We decided that it was time to buy some 40’s and drown our sorrows in ass-tasting malt liquor. But when we approached the counter the cashier immediately pinned us as hapless greyhound riders and informed us that it was store policy not to serve alcohol to those poor dimwits who chose to ride the dawg. I was offended by her assumption that, because I was forced to ride the bus, I couldn’t purport myself in a responsible manner under the influence of alcoholic spirits, but, after the next scene I witnessed at the truck stop, I understood why their policy was in place. Greyhound passengers are a volatile lot and adding alcohol to the mix could only make matters worse.



I had taken notice of the blind man on the bus at our first rest stop, he was hard to miss. I’m not sure if he was completely blind but he walked with a cane to guide himself and his eyes had a certain milky quality that indicated a severe retinal condition. He was dressed quite colorfully in a red, one-piece sweatsuit with a garland of plastic marijuana leaves draped around his neck. You wouldn’t think that a blind man would want to pick fights with the more visually able for fear of severe physical punishment, but this is exactly what happened in Medford. I went into the bathroom for probably the 100th time at the truck stop and I had to squeeze by the aforementioned blind fellow and a young latino kid who were talking animatedly back in forth right in the path to the urinals. It was the blind guy who was doing most of the talking.



“Yeah man, I’m from LA you understand. Tough place, you gotta stick up for yourself. Yeah, we gangstas. That’s right. I’ma blood and you’re a crip. That’s the way it is.



I could tell that these two had a lot of energy so I avoided eye contact and got out of the bathroom quickly. As I was leaving another fellow came in with headphones over his ears. He was nodding slowly, listening to his music. As the door to the bathroom swung shut I heard the blind guy ask aggressively what he was listening to….



Ten minutes later the music listener emerged from the bathroom and approached a few other greyhounders who were loitering outside. They didn’t appear to know each other but they were all African American and this seemed to strike an immediate note of solidarity. “Come on you gotta help me out. This guys trying to start some shit.”



Suddenly they were all outside, the teenage gangster, the blind gangster, and several guys on the other side. There was some shouting and pushing going on, all instigated by the handicapped pothead. At one point a subway employee went outside to break it up and was rewarded with a sharp shove from the blind fellow. At this point the police showed up, handcuffed him, and drove him away. What an ignominious end to his holiday trip. I always wondered where he was going that Christmas and weather there was anyone who would miss his presence on the holidays. It was hard to stay positive at that truck stop, and harder still for those who didn’t have a warm home to go to. Our situation had turned from awful to awful/comical.



After hour six some of the hounders had called in complaints and a news station showed up to record our plight. At this point Greyhound, fearing a publicity debacle, generously gave us all one free meal at either subway or taco bell. How gracious of them to give us a choice!



Hour seven arrived and there was no sign of an impending rescue. The bus driver assuaged our fears every hour or two by telling us that a bus was on the way with an extra driver to spell him. But buses would come to the truck stop every hour with only one driver. They would refuel and then go on their merry way, leaving us stranded and wondering if we would ever get home. For most of the time that I was stuck at the stop I had been on the phone with my mother, a perennial worry-wart and hypochodriac. She grew increasingly distraught as time progressed and offered to buy me a plane ticket from Medford back home several times. I consistently declined, knowing that there was no guarantee that flights were running into a snowed-in airport and also not wanting to leave my friend Sean behind. But as my patience thinned my will broke down and I finally took her up on the offer. I said a farewell to Sean and ordered a cab to take me to the airport. After going through security it was dark outside and I waited with one other person in the tiny airport for my very own rescue flight back home. Then over the intercom I heard an announcement in a now familiar tone of apology. My flight had been cancelled. So it was back to the ticket counter where they gave me a voucher for a hotel room.



Sitting in a hotel room by myself on Christmas eve was a depressing affair and I decided I needed to go out to keep myself occupied. I walked about a quarter of a mile to the nearest mall/shopping center in this poor excuse for a town. But, because it was Christmas eve, pretty much everything was closed. At the grocery store a worker was stacking up the carts for the night and the rest of the restaurants were darkened. Around the other side of the square I ran across a god-send, an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Of course, the Chinese weren’t taking Christmas off. They had their own calendar and their own holidays. I was reminded of my Jewish friend at that moment who told me that Christmas was always the time his family would go out to movies because the theaters were empty while the good Christians were at home spending quality time with their families. In the restaurant I chowed down and drank a beer. I was the only person by himself in the place. There were mostly families and couples, largely overweight (pun intended). Making my scene more pathetic I was wearing a slightly too small red shirt with a picture of Santa’s head on the front, enscribed with the words, “ho ho ho.” After my fine dining experience it was back to the hotel room for another beer and a James Bond marathon on tv. All in all, not a terrible way to spend a holidays eve.



Well the next morning my flight did take off, although there was a final suspenseful moment involving a 30 minute delay for de-icing. At this point I was understandably pessimistic and I figured I would be spending Christmas in Medford with my Asian pals, wallowing in my sorrows and bathing in orange glaze from the sesame chicken. But we did take off and I made it back home at around 6 am on Christmas, about two full days after I had left Oakland. A 2 hour flight turned in to a 16 hour drive which turned into a 48 hour odyssey. Later Sean reported to me that Sean greyhound had been unable to find another driver and had sprung for vans to drive the stranded dawgers to Portland. Ironically, he made it back to the city around the same time I did. But he was subjected to one more indignity. Apparently a man on the van got drunk off cheap vodka on the last leg of the journey and alternated between crying and beating his wife. Nice.



Well you would think that this would scare me off riding the dog forever but now I find myself purchasing another ticket. It’s just so cheap, I can’t resist.