Hierophany

I turn over a stone and
under that another and
under that another.

Rubbish I throw this stone away.

And hit myself
in the backofthehead.

nothing is moving only
the colors are changing

my furrows afractal
biggerandbigger as
details tumanesce

For Mrs. & Mr. Kendra & Ray Wray

It’s not raining but wind
fells rain from the treetops.
Like a tank round,
an impatientist sketch
of inner terrain
rings out in the distance.

I’m at a packaday.

Think of it this way.
This is just my medicationfortheday.
You know how many people take
medication every day?
Besides, I have to hope, by now, that
my instinct has
incorporated my intellect.
Maybe in Delaware.
Dover’d be nice.

*

x marks the spot
in the canadian rainforest
where hot bisexual lesbians
are looking for anonymous sex.
Will the senator yield?
It’s official so no backing out.
Will the senator yield?
No I will not yield.

Chaneled, I said,
these things are channeled.
Can you locate that, Safari?

I’m drunk and it’s
starting to spread.
Let’s rustle us up some
steers and ranch em.

Seriously.
You want to?

Either that or raise
drug-sniffing dogs at farms
in the remote Dakotas.

There we’ll be extreme in the weather.

*

Hey, the U-haul’s here:
all aboard.
Speak Spanish to me—
do you know any?
Speak it anyway—
and don’t get lost.
I’ve got maps
right here...

No no no
that is not good enough
No, I didn’t know that but I’ll
take it. (And he puts
something in his pocket, says)
Thanks.

TX 2DR 784
no smoking and
no roadside bombs and
no al qassam rockets, neither.
goods have never been so cheap
cardinals have never sung so late

to we in North America, who
use our graduate degrees to
engineer relationships so that
small indiscretions, like six-
packs of budlight, yield
35-lb. salmon.

Red bull and rye?
Never had it.
I want amillionpeople on
my web site—
where can I find them?
At Mandlebrot’s, where
it’s randomness based on you, or,
in the log of you?

*

Forty years later.

(Five minute smoke break)

Dude put down
the bong before you call next time.
That’s a rookie mistake.

I’m sorry.
I didn’t hear you.
Did you say service center?

The producer will help you
with your TV. No, don’t
think about what you are.
We who are saving the world are
only just saving ourselves.

Somehow Jesus saved others,
darn near saved all of us.
And we have to be like him, those
of us whose last name
doesn’t end in
Smith.

*

E. Oakland California

What’s in the hot tub?
A big fuckin rat.
Did you kill it?
No I gave it food.

It’s beginning to be a fug in here.
Don’t sliponthetile when you
get our Johnnie Walker.
Don’t fall in the river neither.

I say kickback&relax.
I say hobbyists not lobbyists.

My body’s a puddle right now…
Can’t do a thing about it, Ray.

Can you locate that, Safari?

He said he had a present for me
he said he did anyways
but i never got it nothing much
has changed, really. The politics
is very much anti-GMO. Maybe
we need free and open markets.

Monday...more like mung day.
"I pulled the trigger & shot my friend."
The sound of mouses snickering...
I think the pill is starting to
take effect now.

Oh, do I still have these?
I'm gonna be crunked afterward but
hey you know me—or maybe you don't.
I'm lookin to get laid right now,
can you help?

Stomach growls memes and GDP,
what was the last thing I ate?
I like Dan's. Dan's is a good Liquor Store.
Ownership is about creating a vision.
You just gotta walk home.

Was that a week ago I did that?
Man, that seems like iss been forever.
"I have good news and I have bad news."
Right, I hear ya I hear ya—wait—
I don't hear that.

I don't really want a date,
I just need to get laid right now.
But why all of this, why now?
Because before I had nothing which to give.
And now?
And now it's already too late.

What's the capital of North Dakota?
What's the capital of Suriname?
Are you still writing on your walls?
Who cares, I'm not hurting anyone.
That's not true
you're hurting yourself
you're hurting the-e-cono-me

•••

I wouldn't pay more than $25 for this watch,
how much would you pay? You of
friable lung in Libby, Montana?
I wonder: why do
banks tell us the temperature.

Look at that. That's Norway.
That's Norway, Ray.
Right in the heart of the Middle Yeast.
Nothing cute. Man
Cheney shot has heart attack.
No! I need more time:
I have to show
I'll be a good investment.

But, son.
The market's random.

I

jopo wrote a poem said
so i make bologna
said staying dark longer
said (what was that
eye-talian phrase you used?)

oh god...i've fried
myself on yet another night,
stayin out longer,
flush with small bills and
reducing my
legal costs by
going to law school?

dance, mon frer, stop
biting your nails. let other
countries make the dollar bills
let us make the art. search for
these terms in google:
miami car dealer suicide and fire.

random is beautiful, e.g.
impatientist painters
burning down buildings
paranoid and planting
their faces in concrete?


II

i admit i'm a starving artist type
(except I'm not starving). but
ask yourself this: if you
ain't gonna paint who is?
are we alive to solve
theeconomy's problems?
anything to hide is
nothing to live for i'll
communicate only by painting
try me, and i will.

of course I'm livin in
fear, man, I'm breakin the
law evuh-ree-day.
perhaps it's climate change?


III

ride me all night, we will both love it
lay me down for rest when the time comes
let the wave pass over me and i will.

i don't necessarily want to, but i will.

Fill up the bucket, bro—
we've got a fire to start.
Since you were here
G.B. is all I do.

Diageo, Brown Forman?
They're renting my liver,
crevassed in terms
of Jackie Dan and Johnny Walk Walk.

The flies, they can have it;
they can have the closet.
The doves urged me to ask,
Who cooks for You?

This is actually my own stuff.
I'm smokin—fresh outta the garden.
The .gov? P-shaw.
They've got other raids to run.

I'll put this down on page 61.
We're all writin books, mon frer,
only some of us
are writin em down.

We are the men of misshapen head,
tainted paints, and fugue.
We dare to call Cincy chincy
before we discover: bluegrass brewing.
We know neither who won nor who lost;
ask only: were there any upsets?
Is the Guinness keg kicked?
Rumor speaks of green beer and loose women.
But I’m afraid we’ll never get there,
‘cause we’ve eaten our passports,
having gone hungry
at sea.

In a chair with three legs
a brain-damaged man sits upright.
He drinks peppermint vanilla latté,
he talks across the Atlantic
to Eurasian-collared doves.

We ride the tube, yo?
We double decker.
If Denmark doesn't brew it,
we'll D-I-Y it right here.
Scotch is for men with hairy tongues.

I fill the room as I sleep.
I leave my dreams under the pillow
for the green fairy/demon/hillbilly.
If it rains we'll wear coats and boots.
If arraigned, we'll lie in state abroad.

Songs play as we ready for darts.
Is that Big Ben or the Pont des Arts?
Ten men are downed by machine gun reaction.
They only wanted a spot in the corner, with
Gatsby hats thrown on like blankets.

We lodge we travel.
We eat black pudding and haggis.
I don't remember it all, don't need to.
We'll trade collar stays
when the pound hits two-twenty.

Up the grain elevator
one hundred and eighty degrees
(but no proof)
an aspen chopped in two
makes a fence holding
asses in funny-coat blankets.

When the rail rusts, what's left behind?
Down the track electric: a bottle
cast off to house earthworms;
an impatientist painting
bequeathed in night to the sound
of apple pie vapors wrapped in waxen mem'ry.

If the Guinness doesn't fizz, what then?
A mistake made is extra cold.
A balloon of ink I pop loudly;
a three-fingered glove I force on.
Of this, only the lamb has knowledge.

Hate mail is unadressed—
A sky not blue not cloudy.
He stalks deer with a billy club,
smokes a clove with one lung.

When the postman comes,
the mailbox moves away.

CSPANOCRACY

Due to the water shortage, water was available only from 6:00-8:00 and from 18:00-20:00. Jenkins, who had sipped too much whisky the night before, woke up at 8:30 and, a few seconds later, rushed to the faucet. He turned the cold handle and put his cupped hands underneath, but nothing. He stepped out of the bathroom so that he could gain the vantage of a clock. 8:31.

“God-damnit, he was supposed to call me—”

Jenkins grabbed his robe off a hook and put it on. He walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out a pitcher of Brita. The filter was still in there, albeit a year or so old. Little black flecks collected in the reservoir on the top of the pitcher. Jenkins figured that was fine as long as they didn’t show up in the glasses of water he poured out. He filled up a nalgene and drank about half of it. The cold water hurt his teeth.

He woke his computer up and asked its Real Player application to stream C-SPAN live. This was election day. He listened to the audio through the computer speakers.

“Have I gotten through?” asked a caller from Ohio.

“That’s you Ohio,” said the moderator with short hair wearing a grey suit. The capitol building, welcoming sunlight, lay in the background over the moderator’s shoulder.

“I can’t believe I’ve actually gotten through,” said Ohio.

“Go ahead, Ohio: a lot of votes and not a lot of time.”

He went to put water in the coffee maker but much to his surprise the coffeemaker was already on!

He looked into the living room and there, sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette, and reading that morning’s WSJ was his wife. He craned his head in her direction, his eyes getting big as a way of speaking to her.

“I’m taking a sick day today.”

“You don’t take sick days.”

“It’s election day, I though I’d stay home with you so we could follow the election.”

His dreams of one Guinness per hour, for every hour he failed to get into the switchboard were dashed but there were many benefits to this change of circumstances, not all necessarily coming at once.

“I see you made coffee.”

“I did,” she said exhaling.

“Little early for a cigarette I might say.”

“Well, are you saying it or not?”

“Don’t know, havent’ decided if I want one or not.”

“Go get some coffee. I’ve got CSPAN on. The votes I’ve seen, at least, have been pretty even.”

“Hmmph.” He went to get some coffee.

***

When the country became a constitutional CSPANOCRACY, the electoral college became a thing of the past. Presidents would be decided over the course of a day—not weeks. All votes would be placed by cellphones. The number was taught in first-year physics: 1-800-VOTENOW.

The CSPAN office had a warehouse full of people taking calls. ASAP the queued callers were moved from the switchboard to live air with the moderator of the hour.

“Who are you voting for today, and why?”

The schedule allowed for four voters a minute, every minute of every hour, of one full day. That’s four times sixty times
twenty-four equals five thousand seven hundred and sixty voters to decide the American presidential election, once every six years.

Of course, by this time the United States weren’t just the forty-eight and Alaska and Hawai’i. CSPAN was taking calls from U.S. states all over the world: Taiwan, Israel, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Poland, East Antarctica, the list goes on and on.

***

There was an “acute water shortage” afoot. Voting had been ongoing for, now, ten hours—it started last night at 0:00 eastern time. The queues are flipped every half hour so that it’s not like if you fail to call in at 0:001 the switchboards are gonna be bogged down for the rest of the day. Everyone was supposed to learn this system in grade school but noone in grade school was old enough to vote so noone bothered to pay attention.

Jenkins called his one-and-only—his only non-family, non-neighbor, non-coworker, non-attracted-to friend, DePhazz.

“Hello?” answered DePhazz.

“Are you talking on a speaker phone?”

“No, I’m driving.”

“Are you voting today?”

“I’m working today, bud. You know: cublicle, nine to five, or five thirty or six, as the case may be?”

“I’ve heard stories about people sitting at cubicles under low-power fluorescent lights, totally shut-off from the outside world, yes.”

“I’m going to be pulling up to the office in a second here, Jenks. Be brief or be done.”

“Now, give me a second, boudreau. I’ve got some hashing out I need to do. Open your green thermos—I know it’s on the seat next to you, pour yourself a little steaming cup and sit tight for me.”

“Jenks—“

“I’m in the rut of all ruts, DePhazz. I’m getting nothing done with my days. It’s like I sit down in that chair, and the clock ticks up and up, and before I know it, my wife is already home from work and I haven’t done a damn thing. It’s like my workroom has bad shui or something.”

“You’re boring yourself to death.”

“I’m letting myself be bored to death, yes. I’m tired all of the time. I can’t figure it out. I feel like I’m stifled: I don’t make anything anymore.”

“Nobody makes anything anymore, “ said DePhazz.

“You make things, pal: you make the law.”

“I don’t make the law. I make arguments about the law. And I’ll tell you what, just a little point of information here: I am terribly inefficient. Most of us are. Anytime I show up in court the net efficiency for both sides combined is zero—somebody wins and somebody loses. It’s like baseball players: they don’t make anything. What’s the last thing you ever brought home from a ballpark?”

“One of those big, ah, foam hands.”

“Right. Made where? In a country that shoots protesters probably. You know what your problem is Jenks. Here’s your
problem, in a hundred words or less, because I need to get to my cozy desk and ergonomic chair: you’re a dull man in a country full of entertainers. Those today who don’t entertain don’t get paid. Lawyers, like baseball players, sell their time: clients pay $500 an hour to be entertained and mollified while they wait five months for the judge to get around to looking at the facts and making a political decision. Is that a good use of our country’s time? No. That’s why I try to settle cases. Jenks, this cellphone is starting to burn my ear.”

“So, you’re going to vote for Feingold after all, then?”
“Not a single soul knows who I’m going to vote for, not even me. I wouldn’t know who I was voting for until I got on
there and heard the person telling me I was on. The only person who knows who I’m voting for is Mr. Duke.”

“Mr. Duke is a dog.”

“And a very astute one at that. He helped me settle my last case.”

“And your client paid you in dog biscuits I guess?”

“My client paid me in cold hard cash.”

“Which isn’t worth anything—you should have asked for dog food, at least that has protein in it.”

“Mr. Duke and I have since invested the cash, you’ll be happy to know. He was a fund manager in a previous life and no one, human or canine, better understands how the Fed farms inflation.”

“You think the Fed’s growing inflation right now?”

“Look at all these rate rises. Mr. Duke & I are are losing our shirts on that ARM we got.”

“I told you not to get the adjustable rate. I explained how it wasn’t clear that rates were going to keep dropping like they were.”

“Mortgage advice from someone who didn’t even need a mortgage. My coffee isn’t steaming any longer, Jenks.”

“I need you to do something for me DePhazz.”

“It is past nine o’clock. You are not my client. I owe absolutely nothing to you at the moment, unless you propose to pay me for the time.”

“I knew that cubicle would curmudgeon you.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“I need you to vote today, DePhazz. You know the number, right?”

“Let me see…I’ve got it here somewhere…oh, here it is: 1-800-goodbye.”

***

It was the afternoon. He still hadn’t gotten through & he didn’t know anyone who had either. O-for-14. Jenkins watched CSPAN2, where the senate was hard at work, despite it being election day. He was drinking a Guinness, slowly. The man on the TV wore a gray suit and was addressing the problems he saw with a Democrat substitute to a tax-cut bill.

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Now, I just say this right off, especially after following my good friend from New York. You don’t have to be an economist to understand what I’m saying.”

He pointed at a big chart he had propped up on an easel behind him. It was impossible to read it on TV.

“I might not need to be an economist, but I might need to be a…,” but Jenkins couldn’t come up with anything. “A, a freaking eye surgeon or something.”

The senator pointed at the chart and continued.

“These bars show job losses; all the bars below the lines are job losses. We created almost 150,000 jobs by relying on provisions which the Democrat version of this bill would cut out.”

His wife came into the room.

“There’s an e-mail there from DePhazz,” she said.

“An e-mail?” he asked quickly.

“Yeah, it’s in the inbox?”

“Did you read it?”

“No I didn’t read it. I don’t read your mail. I’ve got my own mail.”

“Well, alright. I’ll check it, thanks.”

“He probably wants you to call him though.”

“Well how do you know that?”

“Isn’t that what you guys do? You talk on the phone. And you giggle about baseball. Do you two talk everyday?”

“We don’t talk everyday, he’s, he’s preoccupied at the office. But we talk a lot, and it’s fun. It’s fun.”

“Whadda you guys talk about?”

“I said. Baseball…politics…books, whatever.”

“What does he do exactly?”

“DePhazz? DePhazz is a lawyer. You know that.”

“Oh, so he’s doing something with his law degree, then.”

“Please, if DePhazz didn’t have loans he’d be doing the same thing I am right now.”

“Which is?”

“Which is, following this election. Keeping track of the votes thus far. You wrote down the votes while I was gone, didn’t you?”

“I did. Which makes me a felon, I guess. At least an aider and abettor.”

“It’s not illegal to write down the election tally, you just can’t publish it or blog it, even though everyone knows
everyone else does it. But, yeah, as far I’ve got written down, Feingold leads Rice 1,685 to 1,675, assuming you kept it up correctly.”

“It’s correct, what do I have a second-grade education? You are unbearable, especially around election time.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m a little wiggy right now. Too much coffee. I’m sure you kept up the tally accurately. I really don’t see why they had to pass an amendment prohibiting live tallies. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Oh, I think it’s kind of fun. It introduces a little uncertainty to the process, it makes each vote count. Imagine how boring these elections would be if one candidate got out way ahead after the first five hours. Nobody would watch, people wouldn’t call and vote.”

“Yeah, except that everyone keeps their own tally anyway.”

“Nobody’s perfect, though. If the vote was even and there was one more call left, how confident would you be in
thinking that, based on your tally, that last call would decide the election?”

“Fairly confident.”

“Well, good, that’s why I like to stay home with you during elections.”

“This is the first election we’ve ever watched together.”

“And I like it.”
“Well, good. Maybe if you’re still in a good mood after—”

Just then something got his attention. He cocked his head to listen.

“What??”

He held up his hand to stop her. The sound was insect in nature, whirring, ripping itself up with starts and stops. Somewhat like a blender or a coffee grinder, but higher pitched and more insidious.

He went to the window and peered through a blind.

“Those sunza bitches.”

“Who?”

“Fucking guys with blowers. They just blow that shit around. It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s not like blowing it makes it disappear. It just moves it from one spot to another. And not to mention the dust. Who wants to walk around this neighborhood when there’s a bunch of dust and shit in the air.”

She was drinking green tea, now sitting at the dining room table, doing a New York Times Wednesday crossword. He looked over at her, in doubletake.

“Is that sudoku?”

She took a fingerling from off the saucer.

“No, it’s shortbread,” she said with a wry smile.

“Whatever happened to rakes?” he wondered. “When I was a kid, we got out there and we raked that shit up. And you know what we did when we raked it up? We jumped it. We rolled around. It was fun. And then we had to go and remake the pile but it didn’t matter. And then my dad would set the pile on fire and the leaves would burn and the smoke would smell so good. It was the smell of fall, in the days before…fucking call-in elections. They just blow that shit around. They’re deluded. And people pay them to do it. What a drag on our economy. I mean, do we really need to pay people to come into our country to do that? Unbelievable.”

He piled into the couch.

“You missed two votes during your little blowers rant.”

“What?”

He got back up, adjusting his shirt.

“Votes. You missed two of them.”

“I did, didn’t I? Did you tally them?”

“Yes, one for Feingold and one for Rice; doesn’t change things much.”

He joined her at the table, sliding into one of the chairs, took a fingerling off her saucer.

“You know what’s interesting about C-SPAN? What feature does C-SPAN boast?”

“Call-in TV?”

“Yes, yes, that’s true—and unusual. I didn’t think about that, but that’s true. But what else, how else is C-SPAN unique, or almost unique?”

She shook her head and looked down to her crossword. “I don’t know.”

“Commercials. There’s no commercials on C-SPAN. Not even are there no commercials, there’s no underwriters. Even on PBS, like the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer? That’s all underwritten. Archer Daniels Midland, Texas Mutual Insurance, National Instruments, etc. It’s nice that the underwriting doesn’t come until the end of the programming, but it’s still there. Have you ever heard C-SPAN talk about its benefactors?”

“No.” She reached out to jot down a series of recent votes.

“No, because they don’t. Just like they don’t flaunt the personalities on Washington Journal. People like being free of commercials. Adverstising is killing TV. But you know what’s funny? The internet, in turn, is gonna kill advertising. The media companies—Time Warner AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, Viacom, Comcast—have paid a lot of attention to what’s been going on in internet advertising circa the last five or so years. Google is overhauling the entire advertising apparatus. Google has that Ad-sense deal, where it posts ads on a page depending on the content that’s been requested on that page. Google found a new way to advertise, to make advertisements more relevant. People who blog, and publish their blogs through Blogger (a Google tool), can actually make money from blogging because when visitors come to read the blog they will also be reading the ads that have popped up in correspondence with the subject matter of the blog.

“Do a Google search for coffee. Links to pages about coffee pop up, but ads linking you to places selling coffee also pop up: Gevalia, Don Sanfrancisco, Boca Java, etc. Google decided it was going to make advertising more relevant. And I like that, I appreciate that—but I hate it, too. It’s like, I want a g-mail account but Google is going to store all of my e-mail and try to sell me things as I’m reading e-mail from other people. People gotta realize that when they send e-mail to my g-mail account that that piece of e-mail is going to be archived somewhere.

“And you know what? That makes a difference. That makes me sensor myself, and for all those people who e-mail me, don’t ever try to e-mail me about drugs or unlawful protest gatherings because that shit’s gonna end up in court being used against me. Google is going to store my e-mail in some big hard drive in California or some place. It’s almost like, the more data, the better. The bigger the hard drive, the bigger the penis. With data, a company can figure out how to advertise in a way such that people who see their ads will automatically buy what is being advertised. The goal is perfect advertising.
“If the government ever thinks you’re a terrorist, it’ll just go ask Google to take a look at your e-mail. Which makes all that argument a few years ago about the PATRIOT Act look like just a bunch of hot air twisting its way through the Capitol. Forget going to a judge. The government just have to get the approval of google. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t govern that. What governs that is a little thing called a “User Agreement” between Google and the client. One of those things that has very small print and says “You must agree to this before you can use Google Mail or whatever.” That Agreement governs whether Google can give your e-mail to the government. By the time the government gets interested you’ve already waived to right to have the Fourth Amendment govern your effects. It’s not like we use stamps to send people information anymore. You know, the amazing thing is that I was actually for the PATRIOT Act. I’ve got nothing to hide. Well, that’s not quite true actually.

"The thing that bothers me is that when the government is sorting through the e-mail that talks about how you’re planning to go about killing the president, it’ll stumble across the e-mail you sent your friend inquiring as to the best time to get together to shoot some heroin or eat some pot brownies. So, great, know the government knows you’re a druggy.

“But why? Why does it know you’re a druggy? What right does it have to prosecute you for that, if you’re not actually a terrorist? That was the point of investigating you in the first place. It’s an investigatory bait & switch. It’s not fair, it’s not reasonable. And Google, bless its blue, red, yellow, and green heart, is not making things any better.

“Google is a tiny protozoan in the tidle pool of the future. Only Google can kill Google. It’s the Walmart of the internet, the Whole Foods of information access. I admit that I practically need Google to breathe. My mind wouldn’t work without Google. I’d have a question & not be able to answer it. If something took away Google, it’d just about take away my life.

“But I’d get another life. I would go on. I would be in mourning for awhile, but I’ve gotten over love before.”

“Then it wasn’t love,” she said, not bothering to look up as she filled in 48 Across. She looked up at him and sipped some green tea.

***

It was the afternoon at the law firm of Writer & Broadband. DePhazz still hadn’t gotten through and he didn’t know anyone who had either, not even Jenkins. O-for-14. From 0:00 to 14:00, on the hour, DePhazz had attempted to set root in the C-SPAN switchboard and wait for his chance to feel the sun. But he couldn’t make it in. Stalwart in its defenses, the switchboard let few in: the quickest, the strongest, the ones with the best timing. He was encouraging his co-workers to call. He thought Jenkins would shit white if someone from Writer & Broadband got in. Most likely it would be a Feingold vote, although several of DePhazz’s female co-workers, irrespective of political orientation, said they had been impressed by the way Rice had handled herself in the second debate. True, if one of his coworkers got through it would hurt DePhazz’s own chances, but he was willing to compromise his desire so long as he knew someone who had gotten a vote recorded.
He was tired of the memo he was working on and decided to shut his door. This was not uncommon. It was common knowledge among his fellow lawyers that he took the occasional siesta at 14:00 or so. He would slink way down in his chair and prop his legs up on the desk. Shutting the door was hit way of signaling that he didn’t want to be disturbed. However, it wasn’t well known that occasionally DePhazz would forego the siesta in lieu of a can of Guinness and an hour or so of live action from the Senate.
DePhazz peered into his mini-fridge, mostly full of Pepsi and string cheese. But he found a Guinness and pulled it out. From the faux-freezer section of the fridge he took a somewhat frosty glass. He set the glass on a coaster. He popped the can, air from the nitrogen charger rushed out. He dumped the can into the glass and let it slowly fill.

***

Jenkins got back to DePhazz, calling him at work. He never could remember the extension number, so he always had to call the main number. When he did this, he got the receptionist, whom he suspected of disliking him.
“Writer & Broadband, can you please hold?”
“I just need to be put through to—”
“Thank you.”
Jenkins scoffed. He came back into the main room to kill a few minutes. Ellie was still working at the crossword. Her tea cup was empty. Jenkins offered to get her some more, the cordless cradled between his right ear and shoulder.
“No, no more caffeine.”
“Green tea doesn’t have caffeine in it.”
“Yes, it does. Not much, but some.”
“No, I thought I remembered the package saying—”
Someone came back to him from the other end.
“Can I speak with Mr. DePhazz, please.”
“This is DePhazz.”
“What?”
“How is the election going?”
“Well, uh, it looks to be fairly even.”
“What else is going on? I’ve got a major headache. I didn’t drink my coffee fast enough this morning. I’m taking the afternoon off. Want to entertain me?”
“I’ve got some Guinness.”
“Ugh. Anything interesting in the world news?”
“France did a face transplant, didja hear about that?”
“I heard something about it.”
“Yeah, the U.S. is all pissed off cuz the French beat ‘em to it. The U.S. plastic surgery interest group, whatever, is goin’ around talking about how precarious the French procedure is, and how the French didn’t even need to a do a face transplant on the patient, that they were doing it just to stick their thumb in America’s face. Then they were talking about something like immunosuspension and quality of life issues, and how it was unethical, medically speaking.”
“I love the French.”
“Yeah, part of me does, too, but you know, Bush, for all his faults, did put it pretty simply: either you’re with us or you’re against us. And, as far as France goes, it’s really hard to tell, wouldn’t you say?”
“The French are definitely against us,” said DePhazz. “Them, and Brazil, and Venezuela, and probably Iran, along with maybe even Russia and China.”
“Yeah, once the U.S. market peters out, China’s gonna have absolutely no use for us.”
“Well, that’s China’s problem. China’s too dependent on us, not to mention all of the U.S. debt China owns. If the U.S. ever goes Argentina, China is so fucked! People talking about China being the next superpower. I don’t think so.”
“It’ll be India.”
“Heck, yeah, India,” said DePhazz. “I totally agree. I mean, sure, there’s lots of factories in China but people get paid shit wages. India, on the other hand, it’s got more tourism than China, and plus it’s a more smooth transition from the Unites States. It’s got information technology, all those call centers. India’s even got a bunch of what are more or less paralegals doing cheap research work for big U.S. law firms.”
“It’ll be your job next, barrister,” said a mordant Jenkins. “But they’ll never get my job.”
“You don’t have a job.”
“I know, and I’ve got the best job security in the world. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“No irony right now, Jenkins; there’s an election on. Did you vote?”
“No luck. Switchboards jammed. Bunch of people from Wyoming and Alabama getting through. I think maybe the Repubs somehow doctored the phone lines….”
“I’m gonna get something to eat, pop some Excedrin. You interested in getting together later?”
Jenkins looked out into the main room. Ellie had moved from the table. Maybe in the bathroom?
“Sure, here, there, somewhere else?”
“How about The Knot?”
“I could tie one on.”
The Knot was around the corner so Jenkins had a few minutes to kill before he would meet up with DePhazz there. He went to the closed bathroom door and knocked.
“How ya doin’ in there?”
“Just fine….”
“I think I’m gonna go meet DePhazz for a pint.”
“Where at?”
“Down at The Knot.”
“You gonna tie one on?”
“Not planning to. Maybe just sip a couple Guinnea and watch the election.”
“Aren’t you gonna try to keep calling in?”
He heard running water , and the sound of her soaping up her hands.
“No, burned out. Never gonna get through. I’ll try later maybe. You wanna join us?”
“Eh,” she chuckled uncomfortably. “I’ve got a visitor.”
“Your gal’s in town?”
She opened the door, toweling off her hands. “Apparently so.”
“Well, so what, come down and get a beer with us, maybe some tato skins or something?”
“Not up for it. Gonna hit the couch, maybe take a quick nap.”
“Well, alright. We’ll be down there, and then I’ll be back before too long. If you’re feeling lucky, call in and vote for Sanders for me.”
She snorted. “I don’t think there’s a very good chance of that.”
He changed clothes and left.

***
Were Jenkins to get through to C-SPAN on this clear, cold day in November, he would not start his call by saying, “First time caller here, and I’m a little nervous, so please let me finish.” No, Jenkins has called C-SPAN before, on a couple of occasions, actually. Two months after his first call he quit looking for a lawyer job, convinced he was incapable of thinking on his feet….
“How long have you been on hold?” she asked, sipping Saturday morning coffee, reading the inaugural issue of the Wall Street Journal’s “Weekend Journal”.
Jenkins grimaced and shook his hand back and forth at her, not to say hello, but to say, “Leave me be!”
He focused his eyes on her cup of coffee, spacing out but glaring at it, as if he were communicating directly with it on some other plane of consciousness. He looked back up at her.
He whispered to hear leaning forward, with the phone receiver pressed into his belly, “What kind of beans?”
She got up and went over to the globe.
“Oh, now don’t get mad at me, I’m nervous here.”
But then he realized what she was doing. She spun the globe halway around and pinpointed the origin. “Tanzanian,” she said.
He stuck out his lower lip, impressed. She bought the beans. Unlike Bonnie, she did not buy shit.
“I’ve been on hold for over twenty minutes,” he said. “Do you think I should hang up and try to call back?”
“No,” she urged. “What’s the point of calling if you’re gonna hang up? Give it a few more minutes.”
The computer monitor contained a big, enlarged Real Player window streaming that morning’s “Washington Journal,” live. He knew about feedback and countless times had heard the C-SPAN host say, “Turn down your television, please. Listen to your telephone.” He vowed he would never have that happen to him. His plan, should he get on, was to mute the computer when he heard over the stream that he was on. That would present an awkward first five or so seconds but he wouldn’t get booted in five seconds so he felt safe. Then he would go into the bedroom and talk behind the closed door.
Through the computer speakers he heard, “St. Louis, Missouri, you’re on.”
He looked at her with his eyes brimming from his sockets. She uttered a little shriek. He ran into the bedroom.
“Hello?”
“St. Louis, are you there?”
“Hello. Yes, first time caller here, and I’m a little nervous, so please let me finish.”
“Thanks for joining us. What’s on your mind today?”
Oh, he had rehearsed this speech, had given it in the shower, in the car, to a neighbor, and drunk one night, to a bartender. He became confident in his theory that the use of blowers was a symptom, in many ways, of the downfall of the U.S. economy. And he knew that people needed to hear someone say it. But this would not be his day, after all.
“I’m…I’m…I’m a fucking bird in a human’s body!”
The host quickly reached up and pressed a button, banishing him from the airwaves (hopefully forever).
Astonished by his breakdown, he came into the main room just in time to hear himself exclaim over the computer speakers, “I’m a fucking bird in a human’s body!”
Ellie started laughing and ran into the bathroom so as not to disrespect her husband. Or, to make him mad. But he wasn’t mad. He had just spoken the words of a ghost, arriving from out of nowhere. He had entered some other realm to get those words, and part of him was still there.
He later met DePhazz at The Knot, a tavern equidistant from their resepctive doors. DePhazz, who just a few minutes prior, had listened to a replay of that day’s “Washington Journal” in order to hear the call.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked sincerely, once they each had a pint in front themselves.
Jenkins took a sip, tasted it, licked a bit of head from his lips. “It just came out,” he said.
“You finally made it on, and you decided you should drop an F-bomb? That was outrageous!”
Jenkins, forced to smile a bit by DePhazz’s reaction, opened his mouth, but just shook his head. “What I meant to say was:
“This is an open letter to George W. Bush. Listen up. We’re behind ya, president. But you gotta start bein’ yourself. Get that megaphone back in your hand and govern. It took ya three years to get back down to New Orleans. You’re a lazy president of a lazy nation. I’m lazy, you’re lazy, we’re all lazy. You gotta start kickin’ some ass, but you gotta make sure it’s the right ass.
“And then I figured by that time the host would’ve reached up and touched that button they touch when they cut somebody off. The trap door, so to speak.”
“They won’t let you call in again.”
“They don’t know who I am. Besides, I’ve got to redeem myself now after that disaster.”
“Well, I’d wait awhile.”
“Yeah, that’s probably not a bad idea….”
“You should get a cause in the meantime. A reason for calling. So you’re focused.”
“What, like trade relations or something?”
“Trade relations: eh. That’s been done. Something new. You gotta find something that pisses you off, do some research on it—I’ll help—and you gotta have a good outline in front of you before you called.”
“Have you called in before?”
“No, that’s textbook trial prep.”

***




“
***

“The last call we’ll take today is from, oh, a quadrennial swing state—how fitting—St. Louis, Missouri, you’re up. What say you?”
Nothing. His palms became sweaty and he felt his heartburn coming back. Too many Guinnea.
“Long-time listener, first-time caller,” he blurted out, as if were an animated character.
“Election Day couldn’t be a better time, St. Louis. Who do you like and why?”
Nothing seemed right, none of the men or women he knew would make a good president.
“St. Louis?”
“I’d like to vote for myself, then,” he said.
“Yourself?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve got a very tight race here, St. Louis. The calls have been neck and neck all day. We didn’t go through all of this to have someone vote for himself.

Wow that last post was a big 'fuck you' to labor day, wasn't it? I love it.

Hey, whille we're at it. Why don't I just

donate my prostate

to the

defense budget?

Is it June, or am I
just in Austin, Texas?

Today, Labor Day, is for
all of the people who work
nine to five (or more).

Anyone normally working
nine to five (or more)
who has neglected
to take this day off to:

get drunk
sleep around the house
take his kid to the beach
write a haiku
stock up on toilet paper

should be committed.
Not myself among the
nine to five throng
I don’t deserve this
wheelbarrow loaded with
twenty-four golden bricks.

No meaning in any of them.

by J Randall and R Wisdom

Two young men are headed north on I-55 in a brilliant blue, sleek Pontiax Grand Am. The String Cheese Incident are playing on the car stereo. It is summertime. It's hot out. The AC is on. It's late morning.

R: Now every time I come up on these fucking bridges I think there's a cop—that, there was one right there and I didn't even see him! I was totally screened by these guys, didn't even

J: Wow

R: See that cop sittin there. What the fuck, man?

J: What happened to 55?

R: What happened to 55? It used to be the Autobahn, man.

J: Ohh. This sucks, man. We could switch to 57.

R: That's longer, though.

J: Well, we might be able ta do it in less time, though.

R: Yeah. And, this road is in such shoddy condition. I'm doin 69. Now, 69 is my desired speed when I'm under the influence, ya know? Cause it's four miles over the speed limit, but no cop's gonna pull me over for that so I can just set it on cruise and go by cops and not even care. But, I mean, it's definitely not my ideal speed in general. I'd rather be doin', y/k, seventy.

J: If the speed limit's 65?

R: If the speed limit's 65 I'll be doin 80, y/k? 80! Like, cause that's the perfect speed. 80 miles an hour.

J: Yeah

R: And when you don't have to worry about cops, 80 is so chill. And 55 is just the perfect interstate for that because you can see forever. So, a cop can't really catch up to you, y/k, y/k? They can't really catch you. But now you know they're around so you're always so cautious, slowin' down—it's just ruining the drive.

J: Yeah

R: I guess...

J: I think the drivers have to unite and, ah, really get into flashing the lights. Cause I love it when people flash their lights at me when there's a cop up ahead. I'm like, "Yeahh." Y/k?

R: Yeah

J: But, I don't ever do it. I, I always forget.

R: Yeah.

J: I think I'm always so scared of, or so frightened after seeing the cop that I don't, y/k, that's all I'm thinkin' about.

R: Yeah. Yeah: cause you're like, "Is he comin?"

J: I mean, y/k, when when when we just passed that cop we talked about passing the cop after

R: when you

J: we passed him

R: when you look in the fuckin mirror

J: Heh-heh

R: And you see if he stays

J: Yeah

R: there

J: Yeah

R: Buy you're movin

J: yeah

R: and you can't tell if he's stayin there

J: Hah-eh.

R: And you're like, "Is he —is he comin? is he comin?

J: Yeah.

R: Oh god, yeah. I hate that. Highway fuzz. Heh.

J: ...highway fuzz. Fuck, man, that cop is right there?

R: And I've been gettin' my ass passed, ever since we left. Granny Wisdom's back on the road.

J: We've seen, what? Two cops?

R: Yeah. On the drive so far?

J: We should have counted how many we saw on the way up here?

R: [Coughs]

J: Estimate: how many do you think we saw on the way up here? Like, eight? Nine?

R: Did we?

J: You think there was more or less?

R: I guess that's about right. It's just that I kind of forgot that it was that many because I wasn't speedin so I really wasn't worried about it, y/k? They're here to stay, John. That's the problem. That's the most disheartening part about it.

J: Yeah.

R: Is the days of worry-free speeding are OVER! You have these fuckin helicopters goin, those damn, like, lights? Where, if you run a red light you can get a ticket and they don't even have to have a cop around.

J: Yeh.

R: God! You just cannot break the L-A-W [starts to laugh, breaking it up; R at his best] anymore. Big Brother is always watchin.

J: How do the red light things work?

R: They have cameras on the light, and then at the side. And when the light goes red, it trips this camera that if, and if something goes through it, it takes a picture of their license plate and it sends you a ticket in the mail—with a picture.

J: Ok.

R: But they're gettin challenged big-time, and the courts might throw 'em out, like the

J: Really?

R: Yeah

J: How can

R: cause

J: How can they challenge them?

R: Because they're findin a lot of 'em, ah, aren't efficient. Like, they'll give you a ticket when you're innocent.

J: Oh, really.

R: And if it does that to even, like, 20% of the people, unless they can fix that, they have to be removed.

J: Yeah

R: Because, I mean, if it happens enough then everybody can say they, that it was because of a malfunction or something. And all of 'em'll win.

J: [nasal exhale laugh]

R: You know what I'm sayin?

J: Yeah...Yeah.

R: Look at this hazy-ass day we're havin.

J: Yeah, it's really nasty.

R: I mean, it looks cool as hell but then when you think that you're in it, it's like, "Damn."

J: Yeah, what the hell is this haze?

R: Fuckin...fog. It's humid-y fog. What's a word for th—let's think of word for humid fog.

J: yeah...there is...a word for it. One of the things I wrote about is...

R: Hu-fog. That's what it's called, hu-fog. But it's h-u-e.

J: Not h-u-w?

R: No, not h-u-w, because people'll think you're bein all scientific with h-u-e because that's the kind of shit you adjust on your TV. No one knows what hue is.

J: H-u-e?

R: Jyeah-ahh

J: What about h-u-g-u — h-u-g-h? Hugh

R: It's not a person!

J: Fog! Ha-hahh. Hugh Fog is a great name. Man...

R: That'd be a great weathercaster name.

J: Yeahh! Ha-ha-ha-ha.

R: Hugh Fog. Hugh Fog.

J: That w—should be the name of the, ah, weathercaster on "The Simpsons", that would be a great "Simpsons" character.

R: Yeah. It would.

J: Get, like, Norm MacDonald or somebody to do it. Phil Hartman...

R: That's when the show took its tumble.

J: Fuck, man.

R: We lost one of the greatest comedy

J: Phil, Phil Hartman I think has proved that he's been more valuable than like, ah...ah...Chris Farley.

R: Oh, yeah.

J: Ya know?

R: It's just that Phil Hartman is one of the most, like, gifted comedians ever, y/k?

J: Yeah.

R: He's genius.

J: Yeah, Phil Hartman was great.... Who else, who else died besides Farley? Didn't someone else die?

R: Belushi.

J: Yeah, I guess I was thinkin of someone else.

R: Gilda Radner died of cancer.

J: Yeah. What do you think about, ah...Phil Hartman or Mike Myers?

R: See, that's tough.

J: That is tough.

R: Because Mike Myers is a different kind of funny.

J: Yeah. Definitely. So that, that's not a choice you would

R: I would choose, I would choose

J: not want to make

R: Mike Myers' movies.

J: Yeah.

R: Y/k?

J: Well, Phil Hartman didn't really do any movies, did he?

R: Yeah, well he did that one with Sinbad.

J: Really?

R: Yeah, it was, like, about a dentist. I don't know, I only saw the first half hour of it. It was...

J: Sinbad, I mean...

R: It'd be alright if Sinbad wasn't in it.

J: Aw!

R: I just never think he's that funny.

J: Sinbad sucks.

R: He's such a sore...on my eyes.

J: Yeah

R: He always wears the loudest stuff he can think of. It's never like cool, or it's always just so god-awful ugly.

J: What was Sinbad on? How did Sinbad get into the business?

R: [laughing] I think Cosby broke him in.

J: Ohh...was he on "In Living Color"?

R: No. He was on that spin-off of "The Cosby Show" that had Lisa Bonet, or Benet? 'Member which one I'm talkin about? It was on right after the "Cosby"s when the "Cosby"s were like, in the last couple years of the run, y/k?

J: Oh.

R: And it was just a spin off. Like, she was the same character in it. I think he ws in that. He was in somethin else, too. You see that trailer? Like, that 80-foot trailer is packed so full.

J: Yeah

R: They had to put those last four things on the outside [cracks up]

J: I didn't even look, I didn't see it.

R: It was, like, did you see that thing that was on the end of the truck?

J: Not really.

R: It was, like, a table, you could tell it was like a table and a chair, y/k? With cloth over it? And then it was just tied to the fuckin door. We're gonna go past Pocahontas.

[Something visual happens here, like I give Ray a strange look]

R: What? What?

J: You might have just barely missed a bird.

R: Oh, fuck! I thought you were talking about somethin important: like a cop.

J: No

R: Hah-ah. I didn't see it, so I didn't kill it.

J: If it made it, it was bang-bang. I mean, kuh-loce.

R: From behind or in front?

J: Close! I wish I had something like that on videotape, man.

R: What was the trajectory of it?

J: It was comin like, like that [moving his arms, with a finger pointing]

R: And it w— it almost hit the front of my car?

J: Yeah

R: Wow. Damn. You got all goofy on me, I'm like, "What the hell?!"

J: Yeah. The other day I saw about thirty crows on the side of the street. That's crazy, I don't care what anybody says.

R: Yeah. Birds are the freakiest, man.

J: Yeah

R: The ones that just sit around.

J: I'd like to get into crows. I don't think anybody's studied crows. Get into crow psychology. Tag 'em and see what they do.

R: It'd be hard to keep up with crows, man. I think they have a pretty big, ah, area.

J: Eh...yeah, I think...

R: But, I mean, that would be sometthin to figure out: how big their range is. [Starts to laugh at something] Ah-ha! Did you read those?

J: Naw, I didn't get all of it.

R: "A woman alone deters" something...I don't know..."deterrence is a requirement..." And it said, what was the third one? "Protect, protect yourself or some—"

J: "A woman alone"

R: Yeah. Deterrence

J: is a

R: is a requirment. Then there was a third one which I don't remember, but then it was like, "Gunssavelives.com."

J: Better than a phone...a-ha! [high-pitched squawk]

R: Better than a phone.

Iranian TV claims at least 20 people killed and eight wounded in US air raids against Herat in western Afghanistan...Taliban vows movement won't hand over Osama bin Laden...[ooh]...even at the cost of every life in Afghanistan...Secretary of State Powell says administration's vision of a post-Taliban Afghanistan involves the country's exiled King playing an important role comma able to rally all the elements together...stay with FOX stay with FOX News for the latest on the war on terror...FOX...log on to FOXnews.com for the very latest on the war on terror...FOX...NYC says its casualty figures are still changing...the latest numbers of missing at the WTC site colon 4339 semi-colon 478 bodies recovered semi-colon 425 identified including 79 firefighters...FOX...189 people die at Pentagon semi-colon 44 at Pennsylvania crash site...FOX...seventy-one soldiers and civilian rescue workers medals for their response on the September 11th attack on the Pentagon...FOX...front seats at Greyhound buses now off-limit to passengers under security rules...[I'm switchin alright I'm switchin I wanna find some C-SPAN, can hear my phone ring, "Hello?"]

Oh no...insane...?...Brian & Rosemary comparison to America and other countries...why do I feel like right now like the conservative peoples...seem to think they're very close-minded...liberal is able to see other objectives. There's like one objective in the conservative agenda...and that was the thing that was pissing me off about Eric. He wouldn't give me time to see that. He harangues me; when I said my father donated to charity he said, "Oh, that's probably just so he can have a tax deduction." ... What kind of asshole says that about your father? What a little prick. If you know you're right, the best way for other people to know that...you can't say it, you have to have other people realize it. That's the secret to being right: letting other people realize it. Not forcing it.

Star-spangled mints: NC candy co. can't keep up with demand for red white and blue peppermints. CNN Britain colon 200 commando royal marines available immediately to join military campaign...CNN...Israel to pull out of Bethlehem, Beit Jala today...CNN...CNN presents colon quote unquote investigating terror with Willow Bay...today comma 2pm ET on CNN...CNN...5000 armed Pakistanis cross into northwest Afghanistan to fight Taliban (?)...CNN...CDC: as many as 20,000 people in US currently taking antibiotic CIPRO...CNN...Wash Post: FBI and CIA believe anthrax is domestic terrorism not bin Laden...CNN...2.6 magnitude quake shakes up Manhattan...CNN...Miami Herald: Feds will test for anthrax in cars and apartment of suspected hijackers...CNN...second indictment issued against Ohio congressman James Trapicant semi-colon charges include obstruction of justice...CNN...heavy bombing occurred around Kabul Friday comma destroying several warehouses in a Red Cross compoun...CNN...state department dot quote unquote religious freedom report slams Afghanistan Myanmar China Iran Iraq Sudan and North Korea...[Hm]...CNN...North Korea shuns US calls for renewed talks cites Washington's quote viscious hostile poli—

[Tape END "April END" SIDE A]

Alex Grandma's Walker Alexander
Free sample shrinky-dinks
tanks and tigers
fairies and fantasy dragons and dinosaurs

free sample free sample free sample
call in the next twenty minutes

free sample

Must be 18 or older to call
Girl jumps off swing
charter communications
digital cable interactive TV high-speed internet

What's your future?

A wired world company.

...OJ Simpson found not guilty in road rage trial...CDC confirms 62 cases of Dengue fever in Hawaii; fever transmitted by infected mosquitoes...Hawaii Department of Health says no evidence that outbreak is related to recent bio-terrorist attacks...Microsoft releasing its new computer desktop operating system, Windows XP semi-colon system offers new features for music listening playing videos editing and organizing digital photos semi-colon Bill Gates denies Microsoft improperly crushes competition. FOX. Continued live coverage on FOX News Channel. Two red arrows pointing to the right. War on Terror dot dot dot FOX: America Strikes Back dot dot dot Here's the latest from FOX news dot dot dot FOX On Wall Street, stock prices edged upward...DOW Industrials gained 5 points to close at 9,345...NASDAQ picks up 27 to close at 1731 and the S&P 500 closes up .42 to 1085...FOX...House narrowly passes stimulus package to inject 100 million into economy over next year through business tax breaks and checks to workers who didn't reap benefits from earlier income tax rebates...Federal Reserve survey: no sector of economy safe from economic shock delivered by September 11th attacks...the big boy's gettin' hurt; that, that's big...Sears is cutting 4900 jobs over the next 18 months...Eastman Kodak cutting 4000, 5.1% of the total payroll...we are just casting ourselves off...President Bush says US is winning anti-terror war on both fronts unquote comma in Afghanistan and protecting America...FOX...HHS Secretary Thompson announces 300 million for immediate grants to cities and states affected by anthrax attacks...FOX...Funds designated for NY, NJ, DC & FL for surveillance comma protection and confirmation of anthrax cases...FOX...stay with FOX News for more on the cost of freedom and developments in the business world...FOX...[sigh]...three inhalation anthrax deaths in the U dot S dot semi-colon two in DC, one in Florida...FOX...second employee at "New York Post contracts skin anthrax...FOX...anthrax discovered in freight elevator bank at Hart Senate Office building comma same building housing office of Senate minority leader Daschle comma where anthrax letter was sent...FOX...six patients admitted this week to Holy Cross hospital in Silver Spring comma Maryland for possible anthrax infection semi-colon all now in stable condition...FOX...preliminary anthrax tests negative on 120 White House mail sorters...FOX...Postmaster General colon Thre are no guarantees US mail is safe semi-colon but the risk of anthrax is small...FOX...Public health experts advise Americans to wash their hands after handling mail [snicker]...FOX...Postal Service VP declares DC postal facility where 2 dead employees worked quote a crime scene because someone has been murdered endquote...FOX...Postal Service offers Cipro to 7000 employees of six Manhattan post offices that may have handled anthrax-contaminated letters to NYC news media...FOX...CDC battered by charges it was slow treating postal employees but quick to respond to anthrax scare in Congress admits it didn't think anthrax could have escaped from sealed letters...[ohh, shit...]...FOX...drug maker Bayer agrees to provide US government with Cipro for 95 cents a tablet semi-colon deal saves government 82 million for 102 million Cipro pills semi-colon but agreement doesn't cover private sales of drug which retails for 4 to 5 dollars a pill...FBI checked 2500 reports of possible exposure semi-colon investigators say most were hoaxes...FOX...numbers involved fighting potential smallpox attack colon Feds say they need 250 million more doses of smallpox vaccine semi-colon 15 million doses currently available semi-colon Britain promises 54 million doses of vaccine by end of next year semi-colon drug companies promise they'll help build US stockpile comma but haven't produced smallpox vaccine since 1980...FOX...NYC mayor Giuliani urges people to get flu shots for their health and to avoid developing early symptoms that might be mistaken for anthrax...FOX...here's some useful websites...end— [to commercial]

Umm, just curious, would you be—
would it be worth it to you to have
certain drugs legalized, pot?

I mean, your own personal
enjoyment of having that
be legal would surpass
that it has to come in bulk
because you can prolly get by
doin the other stuff, right?

That's what I'm thinkin
So why not?
That's what I say.

There are certain things out there that everyone's gonna recognize, things that're gonna resonate with everybody. And, I think one that most people have in common is that they can't stand these Tom Shayne Diamond Business—Now You Have a Friend in the Diamond business commercials. They are the absolute worst.

I remember that, ah, the summer after my freshman year in college the Shayne Company was movin' out here and, ah, they advertise a lot with the Cardinals so it's always on KMOX, and, ah, Adam Schwartz, who hails from Denver, Colorado, and, ah, another guy, Wil Neely, who comes from the West Coast—San Jose area—both had, ah, voiced their displeasure with the migration of Shayne, or the spread of Shayne Company to out here, cause they, ah, bemoan the commercials, too.

And I, I don't think you could find many people who like the Tom Shayne commercials. What I like to do is just find some of these smaller things, like the Shayne Company, ya know? People think to themselves, "Man, I hate these fucking Shayne Company commercials." Or maybe they don't think it to themselves, and it's more of a subconscious thing. But, when you say it to someone, they realize that they, too, have had that same thought at some point. And they catch it, ya know, it catches their attention, and you've succeeded in, ah, communicating your displeasure w/ the Tom Shayne Company. So, I don't know if there's a story in that, but, ya know...

***

St. Louis and its baseball town. Mm-hm. That's the only good thing St. Louis has goin' for it. That's how pathetic St. Louis really is.

Craig Paquette is eloquent. Umm, and I DO NOT KNOW what I was just about to say. The Cardinals suck. Oh, to end my story, as they say, on the commercials: it's definitely a baseball town. That'll kind of sum up the whole thing, right? Mm. Ouch. Tough one for the Cards tonight, boys. Hn-hn-hn-hm.

Ray said, "Heh. Heh. Title, for a baseball story? You Have No Place in Baseball Jose Lima Jose Lima."

You know, it was just one of those days where I couldn't help but stop to...take out the trash on-a my way out the door.

So you can wear socks with your sandals. The sock has an indendation between the big toe and the fourth toe.

So you can slide your sandal right on and still be wearing the sock.

Prevents blisters; your feet from getting dirty; and people from having to look at your toes.

Pack of three, $8.99

by Joseph Portera

by Joseph Portera

Last night was OK. The law school SBA had a $1k bar tab so I had about five free whiskey and cokes, although there was hardly any whiskey in them. The bar sucked. The music sucked. Mostly hip-hop. I was out there dancing on this little shitty dance floor (with a big TV projection screen behind it—how cool!) But I was pretty much dancing by myself for a good 15 minutes. So that was a little embarassing. So I just left. Walked home, cursing the air, my hair pretty much full of sweat. Two miles, one hell of a workout. I grabbed several different kinds of flowers, anything I saw. Some rosemary. And I've got my bouquet in the green vase. Almost lost my unchained keys, twice, while pulling off yellow flowers from a bush near my a-p-t.

The birds wouldn't let me sleep this morning. Even after I popped some Tylenol PM. White-winged doves asking, "Who cooks for you?" The blue jays jaying, the mockingbirds mocking. The starlings whistling back to their families in europe.