21st Century Freedom Riding

Flooding, Budding
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

Ok, look, I've accepted the fact that this is Maine and that 96.9% of Maine's population is white and that most people use the Gregorian calendar. No need to repeat yourself. I heard you twice the first time, reverb and all. And while I accept these things as temporary truths, it doesn't mean I like them. No corollary thread binds acceptance with value judgment. Go ask the local seamstress. She'll tell you what I just did. She might embellish more, with added crass or a postmodern rendering of clarity, but in the end, the stylistic touches disappear and you are left with the same set of temporary truths and a little less time on your hands.

Some days geography, racial distribution, and time collide. When they do, things can get ugly. And ugly they got. Yesterday.

Picture this: you're an institution that calls itself a peddler of higher learning and you're sitting on a plastic blue chair. It's a lot like sitting on a concrete block and the chair's utilitarian design hardly offsets the discomfort. A relic of pre-OSHA days, a bruised ass, and you. You and a classroom. You and a classroom and a feebly attempted circle and blue chaired people taking turns speaking, taking turns making sounds, mispronouncing words, butchering syntax. All in all, an exquisite portrait of a society on the decline - numb and blind and nose-diving into the abyss of cultural inconsequence.

The blue chaired folks are talking without saying anything. If you didn't know better, you'd think you were in central Kansas in a remedial English class circa 1964. Or maybe Oklahoma. You debate the merits of throwing your chair against the wall and shouting, "The word is ESCAPE! Not ex-cape! And ACROSS and ESPRESSO are pronounced just how they're spelled! And if you're incapable of phonetically replicating these simple words, maybe you ought to take a vow of silence because your voice box makes my ears bleed!"

But you decide against shouting. And throwing furniture is a bit gauche for your taste, so you follow your own advice. You take a vow of silence. And just when you come to terms with the surrounding intellectual nightmare, the bomb drops. The class is discussing a novel. A hallmark of the American canon. The story is set in the South. Slavery's involved. So people are talking about it or not talking about and then a hand is raised. The hand raiser asks, "Would the story be the same without all the Negro talk?"

WTF?!?!? Are you fucking kidding me? Did you really just ask that? Did you actually refer to a dialect as Negro talk?!?!? Are you living in another fucking century somewhere below the Mason Dixon line? Do you also own a cotton plantation? Have you ever even seen a black person? And how the fuck can you feel so comfortable putting your ignorance and racism on public display like that? In a fucking classroom of all places! Unfuckingbelievable. Even if we are in Maine. Even if the state's population is 96.9% white. And even if you forgot what a Gregorian calendar is. Unmotherfuckingbelievable.

What's Better than Sliced Bread?

Snaggle
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

Unsliced bread
A serrated knife
Acronyms
Clean sheets

The Subway
Label makers
Well-suited monikers
France

French Wine
Internet Radio
Silence

A library card
And no late fees.

The Greatest Word of All Time

Freedom
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

English is a Germanic language. It's a fact. Yet in spite of its elite linguistic tutelage, English has proven itself a pupil sub par. It is the posterchild for video game addicted after school detention specimen who skips class NOT to attend museum exhibitions or foreign films or to explore the land. English skips class because he forgot to set the alarm. (And yes, English is a male. His middle name is Patriarchy, after all.)

You look well funded in the time department so how about a quick trip in my time machine? Its German engineering renders safety concerns unnecessary, so you can forego the whining and hop in. I promise I'll have you back before you're eligible for AARP membership. Ok. We are traveling back to a time when careers were a thing of lineage. Trade genetics, if you will. Your father was a deserted battle field scavenger? The future looks grim, eh? Eh. Or maybe daddy was a chamber pot scrubber who did a little bountyhunting on the side. Someone's got to do it and after him, it'll be you. Now imagine that in this time of assured squalor and indentured servitude, you are lucky enough to be born into a household headed by one of History's greatest languages. You call him Papa. Everyone else uses Most Honorable Germanic Excellence, I Am Not Worthy. Or some such.

Yes, your father's loins produced little brother Russian and now you, little red-faced English, are the newest edition to the family. You're with me, right? This is better than royalty, for you avoid all that others-plotting-against-you crap, you can marry anyone you want, and there's no pressure to produce male heirs. But the coup de grace is that you, little baby English, have far more influence than anyone who's ever worn a crown. Power is the backbone of your double helixes. Exercise that power wisely and you'll make Papa proud. Exercise it haphazardly or not at all and you, sonny, are out of the will. Oh. You. Tee. Out. You become the token black sheep relative whose name is avoided in all family get-together conversation.

So you're born into this life of luxury. Smart infant languages would not squander such a sacred opportunity. But what do you do? Follow in Daddy's linguistically nuanced tradition? Incorporate the best parts of his identity and then spritz with a little l'eau du you? No. You decide the whole learning-from-a-master thing isn't your style. You decide instead to habitually stay out late, "boozing and using ¹." Why not when you can just push through subsequent morning hell by feigning consciousness during Papa's lessons? Why not? I'll tell you why not. Because you are an embarrassment to your father, to ambition, and to Spanglish. You even make Piglatin blush. Thanks to your academic laxity and your fondness for mead, you neglected to absorb the greatest word of all time. As a result, your vernacular lineage is marked by a giant hole that sits precisely where the greatest word of all time could have been. And when I say greatest word of all time, I mean like best ever and stuff times infinity. Like totally.

That word is schadenfreude. English has no equivalent. It is a noun and it means pleasure derived from someone else's misfortune and like I said before, it is the greatest word of all time.

And I know I promised you a ride back, but the tank looks empty. I hope you brought gas money.

¹ Thanks, Amy Sedaris.

Choosing the Film Instead

Midnight Snack
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

Colored pencil hurt hand
Smudged by time
Gridlocked in squares arranged
to measure five eighths of an inch
Across and I am
smudged
by attempts to refocus, to
Realign.

Maybe this calls for a new clutch
Because the gear shift sits impotent,
doing nothing but making my hand hurt.
And my head and its fingers.
Maybe user error has a hand in this.
Or a foot.
Maybe I'm going at it the long way
adding new color to each page,
New smudges to my face, my fingers.
A feeble attempt to disguise the simple
truth of the matter
knowing full well
A dead man would do better
digging himself out of the grave.

Hand still sore
Despite sharpening into a wastebasket
Black and empty,
Despite washing my hands.
It's just not working
and now I am as close to tears as
I can get through this coat
of quick fixes and
prescription pad living and
being this close is a bigger let down
than missing the jackpot by one.

I am told certain things are a waste of my time
Worthless expenditures on a cerebral plane
flying nonstop first class
Destination irrelevant.
But despite the plush accommodations
I am left unfulfilled
Left wanting something I will never have
Because I lack the words and the means
And time, like a bratty bitch child,
insists on traveling down a one way street.

A Day

Nature's Premie Ward
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

Off to an auspicious start, this week opened with a day in which you couldn't avoid taking a quick thought-romp through Biblical tragedy. No matter your hallow attempts at sidestepping, chances are Ten to Oh you found yourself thinking about gospel-scale punishment. At least once.

Call it reflection, wishful thinking, or applesauce. Whatever you call it, you know you were doing it because we were all doing it. It's a regional reflex to springtime's impulsiveness. When balmy 50s suddenly decide that they're feeling a little bit April snowstormy, you might as well pull out for your copy of Judeo-Christianity for Dummies and turn to the Punishment by Weather section. Alternately, you can just sit back and relax while what's left of your long-term memory flips the pages for you.

On second thought, scrap the whole naming it suggestion. Let it name itself. You have better things to do anyway, like looking out for locusts and frogs falling from the sky. This week neither was spotted. But that's only so because hail chunks took their place. According to the local press, hail chunks stole the show, upstaging anything locusts, frogs, or painting-door-in-lamb's-blood fervor had to offer. Unless, of course, you count the kitchen ladies talking all democratic style about menopause and menstruation. Seriously. I’m guessing it was their uterus lining themed interpretation of the Fairness Doctrine and guessing is as close to asking as I’ll get. And sure, they made no explicit killing-of-firstborn references but they did use the word blood.

This week opened just south of April's midsection. With unpunctured naval aching for exposure, it had to settle for a snowstorm instead. And so the elements had a free for all while I had a free from one. Or free from several. Most notably, I was free from sleep. Free from blanket comfort thanks to an all-night design job, a solid week of nightmares more terrifying than the Holocaust, and a touch of procrastination's consequences. So focused on the task at hand sat I, that the 2 am carpal tunnel walk-in barely registered. And when it did, I made like Helen Keller and didn't listen.

Altoid Exemption

Bleached Animal Bone
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

At last, mint's flavor and my taste buds have signed an MOU. And they've done so without lecherous divorce lawyers, TV Guides, or child custody battles. All it took was joint public admission that the union was doomed from the start. And a couple of restraining orders. Binding gestures of sincerity rank high on history's endangered species list, so one hundred fifty feet and a notary seal seemed the least they could do. Think of it as legality's way of crossing its Ts and eyes.

What's most remarkable is not the beauty of embossing for authenticity's sake. The miracle is that the rapport between my taste buds and mint has never been better. Maybe all the talking was getting in the way. Maybe their shared disgust has made room in the closet for a jester's hat. Maybe this explains why, for the first time in their lives, the two can dismount from their respective I-know-everything hobbyhorses long enough to apply sunscreen and take a leak. If only figuratively.

It's much like a pair of virgins at confession, trying to communicate without words or saliva phonics. Trying to make the other understand while staving off god's rumored wrath. I guess mint flavoring and my mouth have simply come to terms with the fact that they are ill-suited tango partners. And in a high five nod of homage to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, my mouth is progressing real silk-like down grief's canal. It's like witnessing my own birth through a haze of relief, thanks largely to wise earth mother opting for drugs over a wading pool.

And while I bask in the amber glow of placenta and acceptance, I hear mint is languishing in despair. But like anything else, despair has its perks. What with the loss of appetite and the newfound fatalism, mint'll be the envy of legions of V70 driving I-married-him-for-his-money WASP soccer moms. Don't believe me? Then I suggest you write it down. Mint'll be able to squeeze into that size 2 dress before you can say Bulimia three times fast. It's not that I'm trying to paint kittens or rainbows or Elvis on velvet here. Nor am I questioning your capacity for fast-speak. It was, after all, vicarious eavesdrop living that taught me about loss and grief as emotional Shop-Vacs. But Mint will pull through. Mint's a fighter and sooner or later, the anguish will be replaced by something more palatable.

And you never know, maybe the black hole will be patched by someone who actually likes the way Mint makes their mouth taste. Or by someone who never tires of playing pretend. Or maybe Mint'll just throw in the towel, the towel ring, and a bar of soap and agree never to eat lamb again.

Walmart in Your Neighbor's Closet

Fashion Emergency
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

Despite my OG turned classical turned prophetic sense of style, I am far from the shake your head in horror fashionistas who populate national bookstore chain cafes. They're the ones who, with skim milk and a dusting of cinnamon lattes, flip through Vogue (the American version) with hungry eyes and freshly lacquered acrylic fingernails. The suggestive gum chewing jaw gymnastics, the malapropos short skirts and stilettos, the Marc Jacobs sunglasses as headbands. It's just too much. Entertaining, yes, but it is entertainment made cloy by virtue of excess. It's pretty much the visual equivalent of eating a 14" diameter dark chocolate torte by yourself. In one sitting.

So while I live miles away from the nearest fashionista compound - or co-op - I do have my finger on the pulse of aesthetic everything. And last I checked, fashion's cheek bore a mysterious growth. Naturally, I called for a biopsy. And much to my dismay, the prognosis is bleaker than life in Cairo's City of the Dead. In a word, cartoons. Or cartoon characters. Or cartoon characters on clothing worn by adults.

Can someone please tell me why I keep seeing adults - as in potty trained, with families of their own adults - wearing cartoon character themed clothing? They roam the streets in candyland daydream stupor, wearing their obliviousness and their god awful silk screened sweatshirts and Disney logo'd Swatches. Why? And why must they walk around with that unshakable conviction that strong-arms bank tellers into giving them whatever color lollypop they ask for?

Those lollypops are disgusting. Much like the clothing. Disgusting, so why revert to childhood in adult form? Surely not for the fashion. Or is it? The number of adults I see strutting around as WB and Disney cartoon characters is enough to make you wonder and then vomit. And after rinsing off, you realize that cartoon character sweats have become the Burberry of the working class. And then you vomit some more.

Lynching It

Glowstick War on I-295
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

My feet are stuck in cement and my body is sinking as we speak. I am terrified and alive and enthused the way only a crazy person can be. Crazy feet in crazy glue, moving but only when no one is looking. It's stealth executed before the governor's call. Pardon me sir, but do you have any grey matter?

I don't know. I just want to walk but instead I'm stuck in this wheelchair looking uphill. The left wheel is a master key to sidewalk padlocks and my upper body strength is ready for change. Or maybe it is the change. Maybe this predicament is really a sheep that's costume partying as panache.

I have no answers. Neither do you. But that shouldn't stop momentum unidentified - the genderless, primal infant. Look at a church or the Encyclopedia Britannica or your dead grandmother. Or mine. Look and you'll see green lights galore. You'll see delusion laughing at the surrounding straightjacket nightmare and you may start laughing too until you realize the joke's on you. Footing the bill suddenly won't seem so funny.

I'm just an anachronism. Forgotten punctuation marks and umlauts, the sugar in my coffee. And the coffee? Piping hot, dark. Strong like manure but not nearly as delicious. Let's take a sip, together. Only don't look at me. Eye contact doesn't go well with breakfast.

Flossing's Apogee

Pressing
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

Skill and discipline-specific fluency are so damn sexy. The formal term is Mastery and it is Overachievement's favorite older brother. Not only is it competent, but Mastery's ability to induce slack jaw adoration is greater than that of a Paris runway. Greater and oh so very much sexier. Mastery is hotter than Equatorial Guinea and The Book of Knowledge combined. And better too. Better because Mastery has no GPS device. No ISBN. No meridian and parallel coordinates. No paperback edition or untapped oil wealth. And with its scandalously long list of Nos, Mastery makes each Yes sweeter than a honey covered ball of confectioner's sugar.

Pink Ponies and Gold Stars

Man Ass
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

Eve Ensler mainstreamed one of anatomy's most stubborn linguistic taboos. With the help of a sassy disposition and a national theatre tour, Ensler transformed vagina into a buzzword sensation. The phenomenon freed the body's Nelson Mandela equivalent and all that vagina-talk did more than just make other body parts jealous. For one thing, the V-word gave us V-Day. Yes, a day that has everything to do with vaginas and violence. And a day some idiot-savants at Bowdoin College have decided to promote with naked, hairy man ass posters. Naked man ass used to promote women, vaginas, and violence. Fucking brilliant. I guess they don't call them idiot-savants for nothing.

A special thanks to today's UPS guy. Thanks for doing your job, man. Without your truck, your driver's license, and those finely honed package handling skills, I would be without The Mighty Book of Knowledge. And without The Mighty Book of Knowledge, I might have spent today not knowing that:
a) Micronesia's literacy rate is a whopping 90%.
b) Methyl alcohol boils at 148 degrees Fahrenheit.
c) If you take 3 quarts of lemonade, multiply them by 0.946352946, stir gently, then vigorously, you'll have yourself a sore wrist and a couple of liters.

Sidenote Postscript Aside: Is hate mail's opposite fan mail? Or a fan mail love letter look what I made for you hybrid? If so, I just hate-mail-opposited Sleep. Though she's an elusive broad, persistent I remain. I figure she's worth the price of postage.