Another year gone. Not much time to reflect what with the holidays and the economy and the power being out... yes AGAIN.... But Fear Not. With the generator, we can run the kitchen and keep the house warm.
In some aspects it's like Christmas. Phone calls. A certain lightness, giddiness if you like. I smile at people I meet. I get emotional when I think of the people who have gone on before. You wouldn't be able to tell my father a damn thing today.
Not a damn thing.
I miss him.
I keep hearing strains of George Clinton's Chocolate City (gotta find that damn CD):
"You don't need the bullet when you've got the ballot."
"You jive and game and you ain't been tamed. But you're my piece of the rock, and I dig you CC."
"God bless Chocolate City and it's Vanilla Suburbs."
I know it's presumptuous, but I imagine that the closest thing that approximates it is what my ancestors must have felt on Juneteenth. Please allow me a little hyperbole just for today.
Cliched as it sounds, I never thought I'd live to see this.
Eighteen years ago today I got married, providing the last laugh for a lot of people. I was the one who had forsworn marriage, at least until I was 50. I was so sure of it, I'd made several bets on it.
Never paid up, because I'm cheap like that.
I'm all Endicott now. Paying the bills, washing the plates, upstanding as hell.
I ain't complaining. I got a good deal.
It's already being suggested that John McCain lifted his "cross in the dirt" moment - recounted at Rick Warren's Mega Church the other day - from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago".
It would be a shame if he did. But I'm willing to allow that the experience could have happened and move on. Or even that McCain conflated Solzhenitsyn's experience with his own after reading "Gulag Archipelago." I really don't care. And I don't want to see the partisan wrangling over whether he lied or just "misremembered."
I think we've got more pressing concerns at this point. Among many other things, I want to know how he or Obama are going to handle Iraq (notice I didn't say "get us out of..." 'cause that's a pipe dream). I want to know how they're going to try and stem the tied of our collapsing banking system. I want to know what emphasis they're going to place on the monstrous rise of HIV (especially in black and gay communities). I want to know how they'll handle Iran, Israel, and Syria (to name a few). I want to know about their long range plans for a sane energy policy.
By my reckoning about a dozen people were subjected to "involuntary separations" today; cost cutting, downsizing. Nothing personal.
Sure and it wasn't. Everybody has a job to do and mouths to feed, if none but his own. Including the guy from HR tasked with doing this unenviable job. The Angel of Death I dubbed him.
Pithy, I am.
It was almost comical... almost... The Death Angel would arrive appear and the victim's neighbors would scurry to a spot a few aisles over and herd. Wide eyed, heads jerking, peering over cube walls.
Actually herd, like a group of wildebeast. As if grouping like that would confuse a likely predator. I saw fear, raw, open fear today. Frustration, tears. And in at least a couple of instances a bit of nobility and grace under fire. I saw a man praying at his desk - boxes packed in anticipation - while directly over the low cube wall adjacent to him his co-worker packed his things while the Angel of Death stood vigilant, clipboard in hand, checking off whatever procedure we use at a time like this. The praying man was spared.
The last two (or was it three?) times we did this I was fortunate enough to be out of the office. I see now why so many of my co-workers were dreading the day. Most surreal day of my work life.
Our manager called the "all clear" at 1:30 and said we could all go home if we liked. I thought a beer and a plate of calamari were in order. But I'm still numb, or something... I'm certainly not relieved.
I've read several commentaries and a couple FriendFeed threads on the "controversial" New Yorker cover featuring Michelle "Angela Davis" and Barack "Osama Bin Laden" Obama (I won't bore you with a pic, it's everywhere). Try as I might, I can't get worked up about it. Perhaps because I'm old enough to remember real radicals? Even met a couple.
The Obamas are far from it. They are as about as upwardly mobile mainstream as it gets. Harvard, Hyde Park, big law firms, impressive political resumes. Remember?
And I think that's the point of the cover. It's so over the top as to be ridiculous.
I'm really trying here, but to say that this plays into the hands of virulent racists is beside the point. They're already virulent racists. This cover won't make them more racist.
As for what's being termed as "hipster racism" (or perhaps more accurately, "Hipster Smugness"), I'm familiar with the phenomenon. It's the coda of the post-ironic world. Everything is tired and passe. I get it. We're all rubes outside of New York.
But I don't get that from this cover, especially when it's juxtaposed against what I hear is one of the stronger themes of the article; namely, Barack Obama is a savvy political insider who cut his teeth on Chicago politics.
But perhaps I'm just not hip enough for the room.
Joanne loved playing poker with her friends.
They played for dimes but it was the side bets that made it all worth it. These were private wagers of some consequence, the details of which were only known to the parties involved.
Dares really.
Already she’d bought heroin at midnight in a very “bad” neighborhood. She’d had Sheila sell some unwashed panties on eBay. Marcia had been made to confront her husband’s mistress and convinced the girl to steal from him. They were all going to Vegas on the proceeds.
Joanne worried that she would back out on the carjacking though.
Fred Wesley, that's all I'm sayin':
