Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Waiting for the great leap forward

 I I am getting coffee in a funky little coffee house in San Diego. I spy one of those community billboards. You know, where folks post things, like it is the old fashioned 1980's on the local campus. Business cards, posters for local events, babysitters, self help groups for uninsured people who suffer with Bipolar disorder and the hopeful little flyers with the tab at the bottom with a phone number. It looks interesting; you yank it off and whack it in the fob pocket of your jeans which promptly go into the wash. You never ever do get around to collaborating with John Lennon, or the 72 year old guitar player that is into RATT, Van Halen and Bela Bartok. I figure I’ll pin a couple of business cards onto the cork board. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flyer with a picture of a beat down dog. Now I am, like Mark Twain, a big believer in the pure true love a dog gives willingly to a man. Nothing raises my hackles like a mistreated dog. So I am reading through the text and it turns out it is a flyer for the Occupy San Diego group. They have a pretty compelling script as to why you should rip the tab off the flyer. Bailouts of huge trans global corporations who crashed the school bus, taking the future of a generation not yet born with them off of dead man's curve. Indebtedness to Brazil, of all places and some Godless communists, to the tune of 15 trillion dollars. Homelessness, poverty foreclosure, outsourcing. The failure too muster the energy and national will to put a miner on the moon, and the sad plight of 54 million people who can't go see a Doctor. There is one pitiful tab pulled off the flyer. It's dated February 14th, the flyer next it, as I squish my business card in between them (also whacked up on Valentines Day) offers tennis lessons. All the little pull off tabs are gone. Tucked safely into wallets, jeans, saved to the I-Phone. I'm a little perplexed and leave a little troubled that the local tennis pro is whacking balls across the net backwards and forwards too no good purpose beyond cardiac health, while an earnest person who's trying to save America is sitting in the coffee shop waiting for the phone to ring. I wonder if the lonely heart occupier is texting his/her Tea party booty call for some anonymous, angry, yet somehow satisfying discourse. The radio in the car is jammed up with talk show stations. So I start humming a tune I hadn't thought of in years, as the traffic stalls in front of the ARCO station where people are lining up like compliant communists too buy gas from Mr. Chavez.( It's cheaper by a nickel than the pan handling SHELL MOB across the road.) Suddenly I find the words. "It may have been Camelot for Jack & Jacqueline but on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline Fidel Castro's brother sees a rich lady who's crying over luxuries disappointments, and he walks over too remind her, that the third world is just around the corner." The announcer on the radio parrots a bunch of nonsense about these disembodied wraiths that are running for President in about 10 odd states. Taking time off from the golf course, or a working day in congress, telling me they're on my kid’s side. But they're not. They are liars, hypocrites and carpetbaggers. Who spend money assassinating each others character on the radio, the TV, internet and the Santee drive in. Millions of fucking dollars. And I’m thinking my 3rd graders teacher's aide, as opposed to a well appointed congressional aide, has asked me if I could fix the leaking pipes in her apartment because she's scared her fucking rent farming "landlord" will jack the rent on her if she asks for it to be fixed. (Renting is the new hot commodity too speculate on.) I load up some tools, thank her for the work she is doing helping my kid catch up for the weeks she missed when she was out sick with her epilepsy. I fix the pipe with a bunch of parts that all shipped in like bed bugs from China. I drive away and the man on the radio is still talking about a bunch of narcisstic fucking sociopaths, who do not give a fucking rat’s ass about a teacher’s aide making 22 K a year and the pipe leaking fecal matter into her apartment. Maybe she should hire an attorney. Hell, they run the country and look where that has gotten America. And the name of the song pops into my mind. 'WAITING FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD."

Waiting for the great leap forward.

·                             
 I am getting coffee in a funky little coffee house in San Diego. I spy one of those community billboards. You know, where folks post things, like it is the old fashioned 1980's on the local campus. Business cards, posters for local events, babysitters, self help groups for uninsured people who suffer with Bipolar disorder and the hopeful little flyers with the tab at the bottom with a phone number. It looks interesting; you yank it off and whack it in the fob pocket of your jeans which promptly go into the wash. You never ever do get around to collaborating with John Lennon, or the 72 year old guitar player that is into RATT, Van Halen and Bela Bartok. I figure I’ll pin a couple of business cards onto the cork board. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flyer with a picture of a beat down dog. Now I am, like Mark Twain, a big believer in the pure true love a dog gives willingly to a man. Nothing raises my hackles like a mistreated dog. So I am reading through the text and it turns out it is a flyer for the Occupy San Diego group. They have a pretty compelling script as to why you should rip the tab off the flyer. Bailouts of huge trans global corporations who crashed the school bus, taking the future of a generation not yet born with them off of dead man's curve. Indebtedness to Brazil, of all places and some Godless communists, to the tune of 15 trillion dollars. Homelessness, poverty foreclosure, outsourcing. The failure too muster the energy and national will to put a miner on the moon, and the sad plight of 54 million people who can't go see a Doctor. There is one pitiful tab pulled off the flyer. It's dated February 14th, the flyer next it, as I squish my business card in between them (also whacked up on Valentines Day) offers tennis lessons. All the little pull off tabs are gone. Tucked safely into wallets, jeans, saved to the I-Phone. I'm a little perplexed and leave a little troubled that the local tennis pro is whacking balls across the net backwards and forwards too no good purpose beyond cardiac health, while an earnest person who's trying to save America is sitting in the coffee shop waiting for the phone to ring. I wonder if the lonely heart occupier is texting his/her Tea party booty call for some anonymous, angry, yet somehow satisfying discourse. The radio in the car is jammed up with talk show stations. So I start humming a tune I hadn't thought of in years, as the traffic stalls in front of the ARCO station where people are lining up like compliant communists too buy gas from Mr. Chavez.( It's cheaper by a nickel than the pan handling SHELL MOB across the road.) Suddenly I find the words. "It may have been Camelot for Jack & Jacqueline but on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline Fidel Castro's brother sees a rich lady who's crying over luxuries disappointments, and he walks over too remind her, that the third world is just around the corner." The announcer on the radio parrots a bunch of nonsense about these disembodied wraiths that are running for President in about 10 odd states. Taking time off from the golf course, or a working day in congress, telling me they're on my kid’s side. But they're not. They are liars, hypocrites and carpetbaggers. Who spend money assassinating each others character on the radio, the TV, internet and the Santee drive in. Millions of fucking dollars. And I’m thinking my 3rd graders teacher's aide, as opposed to a well appointed congressional aide, has asked me if I could fix the leaking pipes in her apartment because she's scared her fucking rent farming "landlord" will jack the rent on her if she asks for it to be fixed. (Renting is the new hot commodity too speculate on.) I load up some tools, thank her for the work she is doing helping my kid catch up for the weeks she missed when she was out sick with her epilepsy. I fix the pipe with a bunch of parts that all shipped in like bed bugs from China. I drive away and the man on the radio is still talking about a bunch of narcisstic fucking sociopaths, who do not give a fucking rat’s ass about a teacher’s aide making 22 K a year and the pipe leaking fecal matter into her apartment. Maybe she should hire an attorney. Hell, they run the country and look where that has gotten America. And the name of the song pops into my mind. 'WAITING FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD."