et tu n'en auras pas!

ruth's car wasn't liable to make the trip up so we got the greyhound bus. i sat behind a brazilian man who spoke neither english or spanish, and was taking a bus from the US consullate in reynosa to new york city. he seemed excited to finally have documents to let him stay legally. next to him was a black guy who was going to chicago and said that he got into too many fights, as was attested by his scarred knuckles and eyebrows. i attempted to translate a conversation between the two on such topics as sports stars from brazil and the US, futebol, carnaval, optimal times for finding maconha in sao paulo, and brazil's women. we almost got into trouble when the brazilian said michael jordan, the black guy said mike tyson, then the brazilian said that he also liked michael jackon amongst the other two famous michaels. he said something i couldn't understand so i translated it as "michael jackon's older songs are very popular in brazil, he says." about 20 minutes after leaving from mcallen he asked me if we were still in the city of texas...

last night i made cassava pancakes but i was scared to eat them after reading about the 75 dead children in the phillipines. finally i was persuaded to eat them. catching up the africa dialogue website and correspondence with my french people

con sudor en la frente

we went to progresso yesterday and it was like a ghost town. one of the only restaurants left open gave us huge tacos and refrescos for five dollars. all went smoothly until it was revealed that duylinh was perhaps a terrorist. if the government agency required about an hour of time to verify a single identity from a driver's license, how can they hope to effectively pick out a suspicious person from the entire population?

.ghetto celebrities

A esperança é a última que morre.

go ahead, ask me how i did it.

à tout à l'heure

between bullshit and lying

excerpted from On Bullshit, by Harry G. Frankfurt

...she is not concerned with the truth-value of what she says. that is why she cannot be regarded as lying; for she does not presume that she knows the truth, and therefore she cnanot be deliberately promulgating a proposition that she presumes to be false: Her statement is grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with the truth--this indifference to how things really are--that I regard as the essence of bullshit.

boredom's in

a few anecdotes from guatemala, (Spring Break '97 part V) with accompanying photos


gauchitos is an argentine franchise that serves very small hamburgers with a fried egg or not, and a magical sauce whose recipe is only revealed after 20 years of loyalty to the comapany, at roadside stands throughout the country.



pollo campero. you need it. i heard a delta pilot saying that they call the atlanta-san salvador flight the chicken flight on account of the smell of pollo campero that every other passenger brings aboard. we got a bucket of campero and a case of pilsener to prepare ourselves for smuggling an undocumented immigrant into guatemala. just before crossing the border we had to take advantage of a promotional offer of free pilsener t-shirt with the purchase of a case


on the way to zacapa, we stopped at a roadside place for a pound each of fresh chicharrones and carnitas, eagerly eaten by the chinitas


we took the 5am bus from zacapa to guate and grabbed a cab to tere's house. she drove us to antigua and took stylistic photographs in all the places where there are slightly more gomelas than europeans. this is the hookah bar. tradition calls for glasses of white wine, but we found out the next day that a half bottle of extra light is a suitable substitute



these dogs live on top of a volcano and eat lava for nutrition. johnny and i took a tour to pacaya. our tour group of mostly europeans and israelis, feeling the camaraderie brought by accomplishment shared stories at least loosely related to sleeping with a portuguese street magician in his van for a while


we took the four wheelers into monterrico and bought ten pounds of some fish recently caught in the mangrove swamp-its razor sharp teeth will cut the bag- called sierra and one live duck, all for about twenty dollars. nacho's frat boys left early so we had to eat all of these animals ourselves.



we had to help the woman catch the duck. she pinioned its wings, locking them at the elbows, and one of the fishermen tied its feet together and fashioned a handle with which to hold him. on the ride back he shit on himself for fear. maria carmen set a pot of water to boil and held him down while duylinh plucked the feathers around his neck and cut his throat. i then cut it deeper because it didn't bleed fast enough. once we had enough blood for the porridge maria carmen broke his neck and killed him.


adolfo gutted the duck and cut him into pieces. we put half into the porridge thickened by blood and barbecued the rest the next day. tata's grandfather said that the concept of property rights is not uniquely european. he bought a piece of land from some mayans. before they agreed to the sale, he and his family had to meet the community members and stay on the land for a three month probationary period. he said he has never known more honest and friendly neighbors. at the end of the three months, they carried a man who appeared to have over 100 years out on a chair and convened a council of elders to decide on the purchase. when the eldest gave the word it was a deal. the owner of prensa libre, who offered double the price of don asturias, was rejected.


on the way to the airport this morning we stopped at a mirador giving towards the pacific ocean and ate oysers and black conch cocktails with pilsener. the owner's daughter apologized for the delay, as she didn't have much experience in cracking the shells. yesterday duylinh and i walked to la curvina with three dollars and tried to convince shop keepers to accept them as payment for bread and eggs. two shopkeepers and three or so random loafers explained to us that they would like to help, but that the dollar is currently devalued and it is not wise to hold dollars if one can have quetzales. i offered one shopkeeper an exchange rate equal to half of the market rate. he declined and told me to walk to the bank in monterrico two miles away to exchange my three dollars. one man sitting on the corner heard me mention that i was staying with don asturias' nephew, and offered me quetzales at nearly the market rate. i took the four steps back to the shop keeper and said ok let's have the huevitos and bolsa de panes.

nunca tuviera la oportunidad de

zacapa is the anti tourist town, they say you are either a cop or a robber if you are born here it seems like everyone had a dirty secret. the only way to tell the high school students and the prostitutes apart were their uniforms. it turns out that our hotel was a whorehouse but we were too tired to hear all the racket through the night. in the morning i forgot to give the madame the key back. we will have to mail it to her. antigua is touristificated. johnny and i went up to volcan pacaya our tour group was all stoner israelis and europeans. while we waited for the bus to get fixed i talked to the first monoglot swiss i have met, a girl from the italian part, there with her boyfriend. we worked with spanish and broken into it were chunks of french, english, and italian. tran and duylinh befriended some boys from the antigua high school while we were gone, and a mayan vendor told tran to buy something in japanese. this is the tourist hub of central america, it seems. we will take the shuttle to monterrico that we paid for in dollars tomorrow to the beach house. disgusting.

ganç

we arrived and started drinking beer and eating pollo campero in the car, driving to rio dulce. the customs agent gave me a 15 day visa he said the other eight days were for in case a girl invited me for coffee or dinner and... nacho's house has swings. we had to illegally cross surya over the border. fortunately the salvadorean border guards were playing soccer and didn't want to bother with paperwork and the guatemalans only had a hen and a drunken old man guarding the border. we are in zacapa, tierra caliente, where we should find a bus to guate in the morning

mil anhos pueden alcanzar para que puedas perdonar

i have to check if i still know spanish. i haven't spoken it for a long time, so i put on some shakira song that i never have paid attention to the fast part of the chorus. based on my experiments, if the customs officers or bus drivers sing their requests quickly i will rewind them an average of five times before piecing together their requests. recently i have only practiced spanish giving romantic advice in costenha gliglico and reading rayuela in the non-sequential form. it will take the four of us much work to cover up the fetid stench left behind by surya at the monterrico beach house with our own. tata has requested foot powder, a gallon of chicken wing sauce, and a bottle of 151

nena claro que te amo abonete bien con tu arroz y pollo que tu mama, desde hace quince minutos, te llama para comer. ademas siga sus advertencias sobre los hombres espanholes, pues me atormenta tu amor que no me sirve de puente porque un puente no se sostiene de un solo lado, jamas Wright ni Le Corgubiser van a hacer...

las balas son sus leyes sucias

apparent homeless men standing on some intersections in austin are police officers. they will look in your car to see if you are wearing a seat belt, if you have an open beer, or if your tags are expired. some of them pose as drug addicts to attract kids who want to get high but don't know where to buy and kids who think it will be cute to give them a joint.

tell-tale signs include: expensive and comfortable shoes, patriotic american flag pin, selling flowers, holding up a funny sign (i.e. i won't lie, i want a beer)pandering gaze you might think is to draw sympathy (for inspecting). some men who appear to be muttering to themselves or kneeling to tie their shoes are speaking into radio microphones to alert a nearby squad car.

the cops, though, are a benefit to actual homeless people since they donate any money they collect to a local organization which helps them get health care and find employment.

or so duylinh was told by a defensive driving instructor today. the men at Ben White & I-35 and Riverside & I-35 are examples. anyone want to help me mount a counterinsurgency?

urine puddles..you're in trouble

i got involved in a valley-style barbecue and briefly forgot the politics, but instincts are instincts. i go to work on a portable hot plate in an astonishingly cluttered kitchen but it is ruth's kitchen so for her it is custom-designed for someone of her height and her reach and her memory of exactly where everything is and where everything goes. the pit is dug in the ground for the bucolic charm and it has its moments of appropriate heat current (we were impervious to), and small dogs walking around, smelling the meat. we take turns squatting next to the fire and trying to guess if it is blood or appropriately-cooked juices dripping in the darkness. johnny, phil, and i offer a beer to everyone we know does not like to drink. duylinh fries some corn tortillas to dip in the salsa. this serves as a diversion from the meat, which we usher in quickly on escort and offer it only to skinny quiet girls. soon it has become difficult to move around since people are sitting in all the doorways and half of the yard is cultivated with spices and flowers so you can't step there. there never were any places to sit in the first place unless you wanted to be inside of a tent. it is a quaint house, over a hundred years old. it comes to pass that the chicken will not cook evenly in a timely manner so we gnaw off the parts that are not raw, put the tray in the fire and the call goes around for abando commando. hushed whispers then i give the go ahead. "we're going to buy cigarettes, we'll be right back!" in these circles it is not appropriate to leave at the height of the party unless you lie and say you are going to buy cigarettes or get some ice. if you ever let anyone know that you are planning to leave then everyone makes it a game to browbeat you and convince you to stay. the only ways to do it are to make a slipshod case for temporary absence or call out your own treachery and say "i'm bailing out." most importantly we smuggled out the three remaining bottles of beer

the students in my complex who stayed behind are yelling back and forth: "season three! have you seen season three! fuck you!"

le puedo pedir...

a member of the movie crew for one of the films of the SXSW independent film festival is sleeping on my couch, so he got me into a VIP screening of four eyed monsters

it is a cute modern art film about relationships, and this couple spends this time never speaking to eachother and only writing notes. it turns out it is the true iife of the couple who wrote it.

i hope tonight that you will touch my hair and draw ghosts on my back

i lay on the air mattress giving thumbs up signs
i shaved
i slapped my face last time i yawned and i haven't yawned since
i peered through the deep layer of oil and pronounced it simmering
i listed spinal marrow as the virtue of oxtail
i told joe i don't care what time you show up
i bought five ounces of poppy seeds on sale
i preemptively imagined me feeling awkward if we should not catch a bus quickly
i closed the book because i cannot read about human bones cracked open for marrow any longer
i called myself moralist

amor no tengas miedo

i got the book in the mail. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. It reads fast and is fascinating for those of us who wish we were born hundreds of years ago in one thousand different places, with infinite lifespans. A review is here

climbing up the walls

reading Kevin Shillington's History of Africa, I have come across historical precedents for two modern practices:

1) Artists catering to tourist market:

The court art of Benin reached in its height in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as Portuguese traders provided a new source of copper. The Portuguese themselves were depicted in some of the copper plaques. The artists also make a number of ivory carvings, salt cellars and bangles, for sale to Europeans. These were probably specially commissioned by Portuguese merchants and form perhaps the earliest example of African artists catering for the European tourist market!


2) Built-in obsolescence for profitability:

The economics of the plantation system was such that until the end of the eighteenth century it was cheaper to import fresh slaves from Africa than it was to allow them to rear their own children. A woman in childbirth could no longer labour effectively on the plantation, and a child had to be fed for a number of years before it could be forced to work on the land. Thus in the British colony of Jamaica, for example, three-quarters of a million slave workers were imported from Africa over a period of some two hundred years; and yet, at the time of emancipation in 1834 the population of Jamaica was only a third of a million.

e a maconha qui voce fumou, sou a mulher qui voce violou

for international women's day i am making a crude translation a portion of the most recent zapatista communique... the proper spanish text is here. i should write about democracy in mexico soon since the middle east is getting all the attention.

I send you a hug, my own and that of all the companheros. We are doing well here. It hadn't occurred to me, but this missive seems to me an excellent medium to put the finishing touches on the transmissions of the Zapatista System of Intergalactic Television. And what better way to finish than with a sports segment? As you may know, contrary to the theme of the Olympic games "stronger, faster, higher," in our sports and Zapatist Olympiads, we enshrine the "weaker, slower, lower"...

Weaker

So I'll tell you how we were climbing the hill of the radio transmitter. So that you'll understand me, I'll tell you that, in the hierarchy of horrors, from greatest to least, they are: Hell, purgatory, the Hidalgo metro station in Mexico city in rush hour, and the radio hill. Have I given you an idea yet? Well we were climbing for one of the Sunday transmissions of Radio Insurgente, The voice of those without a voice. We were halfway up and, while the Insurgent Erika was climbing at a gallop without feeling any sort of weariness, I was approaching a state of cardio-respiratory arrest (that is to say that I was dying). Then, making a signal in any direction, with sole objective of slowing ouselves, without which my ego would have looked about as beaten down as my heart, with my last reserve of air, I asked of Erika: “What is that over there?” Erika stopped, looking towards where I had just signaled, as I took the pleasure of sitting down and doing what I could to adjust my left boot. "Where?", asked Erika. Instead of answering her I told that she should go down to tell the Major to send the news items to me when they arrived. According to my calculations, as Erika would be descending and climbing the hill for a second time, I would reach the summit of the hill, without any damage to my macho pride. Erika went down... running. I continued climbing, supporting myself on tree branches and stones, cursing my foolish idea of converting the novel Uncomfortable deaths into a radio broadcast and transmitting it on 100.5 megahertz modulated frequency. When I had 50 meters left to reach the summit, Erika came jogging up to me with an "Ok I'm back already. The Major says he will send you the news items once they arrive." I wasn't able to say anything (for lack of air and for shame) and I ceded the lead to her. Finally we arrived. I had barely sat down in front of the transmitter when the Insurgent Tonhita came running up with the news items. She went down, running, saying that she was going to start a soccer game with the other insurgent women. While Adolfo was preparing the apparatus to start the transmission with an "It's already pointing towards the horizon..." I read the news items.

Nothing serious. Only that Comandanta Horetensia was learning to drive like a chauffer and that the companheras of Los Altos would no longer accept for "Civil Society" to give the courses about women's rights, and that they themselves would decide upon the topics and facilitate the discussions. Commandanta Hortensia said that she was learning auto-mechanics and she could already disassemble the distributor of "Chompiras." Erika entered carrying an automobile battery weighing about 15 kilos and went away, descending the hill... running.

It was then that the Lieutenant insurgent of transmissions, Adolfo, given the task of reading that which came into his hands and asking all questions, told me "Hey sup, Who ever said that women are the weaker sex?"

I, and not without much difficulty, stood up and responded to him: "surely an imbecile," as I tore a sign from the door, which I myself had put up a while back, that said "TOBI's CLUB, NO WOMEN ALLOWED."

Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that the sun was laughing.

one in comes the two to the three

she said then who is your hero. facetiously-magic johnson, who was my childhood hero- we googled him to check how he was doing. there was an article saying that condom use increased in a sample population after hearing his announcement of being HIV positive

it is said that portuguese sailors form fernando po sailed inland to find a river with many delicious shrimp. they called it rio dos camaroes

como ves ves como crees crees

ils mont dit que je vais partir la moitie de juin a Mbalmayo

qui ou que?

i learned that in french there is a much finer line between direct object pronouns and subject pronouns than in spanish or english. this fact also applies to portuguese, it seems. the nigerian molcajete makes mashed potatoes of consistency similar to fufu. i threw a ball of it at our courtyard and it scatters like powdery snow. this would be a good foodfight.

Giuliana Sgrena `e libera.

Assassinato il suo liberatore
The italian newspaper employing the freed journalist who was shot wrote the folowing about the woman: (approximately)

"Giulana was freed and is well. After an immediate operation in Baghdad to remove a bullet, seh arrived Saturday morning in Rome and recovered in the hospital Celio where she underwent an operation the following morning on her clavicle. In the automobile journey on the morning of March fourth that carried her to the Baghdad airport and back to us, her car was struck by American fire. She was one of two people injured, though her injury was not grave. Nicola Calipari del Sismi was killed. The USA Department of State has expressed its own "regret" for the incident."

Sgrena's claim that she was targeted is given credence by a series of earlier killings of journalists which at the least can be considered careless and negligent. an august 2003 incident of a tank firing at the al-jazeera office and killing several journalists comes to mind...

just now i see a freshly posted story from none other than Giuliana Sgrena. really i just saw this right nowNapalm Raid on Falluja?

but then again it is very easy to get shot at a checkpoint. david enders, a briton blogging from baghdad, has an excellent post on his blog called Checkpoint Death Syndrome

the dough is denser since i put potatoes in

sol tapado

Frank Rich of the New York Times sums up the state of the press in the United States quite succinctly:

"Reporting America's Story," NBC's slogan, is what Hunter Thompson actually did before the phrase was downsized into a vacuous marketing strategy. As for Mr. Rather, he gave a valedictory interview to Ken Auletta of The New Yorker in which he said, "The one thing I hope, and I believe, is that even my enemies think that I am authentic." The bar is so low these days that authenticity may well constitute a major journalistic accomplishment in itself.

well let's start by....

everyone loves the new thievery corporation album where each song has guest vocalists and djs. if it is a good weekend i can throw into the pot of beans the last of whichever sauce i made before, so long as it is not cream sauce or sauce mornay. the woman who brought me home by coincidence i live in the exact apartment her brother once inhabited. i didn't have to give directions. i just said i get the mail of someone of your highly-unusual-for-this-area last name.

we went to the potluck and frank's rum and coke won third place though the rum was something that probably could not be called rum under slightly stricter labelling laws, the effluvium of isobutyl propionate faintly of nail polish.

marching the hate machines into the sun

the doctor sent me with his van to get some jornaderos to move bookshelves. two mexican primos and a guatemalan. he fed them afterwards and told them to drink all the beer they wanted. his daughter drove me and them home afterwards. they said the work was laughable, as if they were doing nothing at all. all good then. i got my sweater back and some new lounge albums. we have an idea of the itinerary.
-arrive in san salvador
-drive straight to rio dulce, the river leading to the carribbean in guatemala, see the pyramids
-tata leaves us behind and we go chicken busing around and see pyramids and/or volcanoes
-we meet tata in monterrico after the work week and enjoy the black sand and rum.
-go back to san salvador, catch a beach if there is time. i will need to bring back as much zacapa and botran extra light as does not exceed a misdemeanor

anecdote from american friend in germany

Alas, I am back in the land of Benzos (sans Lorenzo) and, that's right,
Jewish corpses. Which is what I wanted to discuss with you. I can release
an "Our Man in Berlin" piece, wherein I give you the latest happenings and
celebrity drivel to satisfy the American eager to repair fragile
Transatlantic relations. Like to hear it, hear it go


My old tattered tennis shoes have been housing my shivering timbers
since I came to Berlin, as I am a little anxious when I see the omnipresent
green
and grey Polizei (police for you idiots) paddywagons. The ol' bit about
how the police officer in hell would be German (while the cook would be
English, and the Italians would organize the affair (sarcastic laughter.))
My occasional runins with the Po Po (you need a light for that bicycle, wah
wah) have learned me that they (along with all the Germans in general
(Stereotypes make life easy)) are sticklers
for the rules and regulations, so I'm on edge. Which made for a merry
Saturday afternoon stroll in the sunshine, trying to get rid of a whole
bunch of trash from a dismantled hallway in our apartment.
Let me also indicate my distaste for such chores, or any chores in
general, as assigned to me by my wife. When they were doling out wives, I
got the one that loves doing ridiculous shit to "improve" the apartment, and
then asking me to clean up the ungodly fucking mess. I resist it all I can,
by claiming illness, faking sleep, or by verbally assaulting her and her
ancestors, but in the end, I take out the trash (as I am, technically,
whipped.)
I wake up, at the crack of morning (10:30) with a little bounce in my
step, as I have the apartment to myself because my wife is sleeping off her
bender of refinishing a busted ass medicine chest. I am prepared to ride
off into the beautiful sunshine, but am called back by the wife I assumed
was still asleep.
"When do you think we should take out that wood?" (read: when are you going
to take out the wood? You should do it now, as I am as relaxed as
possible,warm and comfortable in a bed, me being far detached from your
horrendous task.)
I answer with an indication that I am in quite a good mood, and a
forthrightness which is not usually my style: "I'm going to take some out
right now. Then I'm leaving, because I've got shit to do. And then you can
get up
you can take the rest."
She has a few more minutes sleep, as I wonder around with two 6-foot
wooden
frames that were once our hallway within our hallway (oddly enough, it is
supposed to have been built by an old East German stasi officer.) I make a
wide circle of the neighborhood, carrying these things, and stop here and
there to make my own pickups before delivery. I return to our street, full
arms as weary as an old dog's paws after you make him lift weights for half
an hour while you smoke cigarettes in his face. ("You can do it boy. Oh ho
ho, you can do it. That's right. Just ten more, and I won't have to shock
you again.") I had missed the dumpster that was only ten paces away from
our door. I whistle my way up the street, toss them in the open dumpster,
and whistle my way back down. I ignore the stares of the pedestrians, who
are having difficulty believing their eyes. Did he really just make an
unlicensed dump of wooden materials, violating at least 4 seperate city
ordinances? And have the gall to whistle Snoop's "Drop it like it's hot"
while doing it? Yes, I did. What of it. (I have imagined myself as a
badass in this situation.)
Upon returning home, I drop off my pickups (a chocolate I found on the
ground, and a whistle adorned with the Business-suit clad elephant Benjamin
Blumlein.) I inform my wife as to the location of the dumpster she will be
using to drop off most of the wood when she gets her lazy ass out of bed. I
prepare my last load, imagining my job was nearly complete, and manuever the
planks out the door.
The same attitude I had noticed only moments earlier from the streets'
passerbys was still in effect, even more so, if possible. In addition,
there was a small crowd around the dumpster. I, again, whistle my way up
the street, walking past the dumpster (yeah, that's the smart thing, yeah)
and then turn around. What's the big deal. I cross the street, hoist up
the wood and-
"Oh. Can I put this here?" Fortune smiled, and I had the opportunity to
discuss the matter with the man who was renting the dumpster, and took it.
"No, you can't. I paid for this this!"
"Oh. Really? Well, can I take this one back?"
"Back. Yes. This is not for wood."
He hands me the 6-foot wooden frames, and I balance them while speaking with
an air of refined intelligence:
"Whoa, unh, uh yei yep. Get it like this, let me turn this, ah ah, ok.
Aya. Danke."
Now, I had not only one armload, but two full armloads, of dusty, splintery
ol' wood. Perfect. I remind myself why I love my wife. Oh, that's right,
it's because she asks me to do lots of shit I don't feel like doing. I
remember.
I see my drunk of a neighbor, Herr Schaeffer back by the house. I wave
the
wood in his direction and bid him a good day, and he waves back. He does
not walk towards me and my sinful burden, but remains fixed in his position,
discussing drinking (I assume) with some other guy.
I decide to try to discard the murderous load in a different
neighborhood.
I wander through the grafitti-strewn tunnel, and discover a photographer
setting up a chair in front of one of the tags. I call out to him, and
inquire if that graffiti is his.
He gives me a puzzled: "Gemalden? Do you speak English?" (I guess I used
the wrong German word. It was obvious that I am not a native speaker, as
the closest I can come to German is the grunts and gestures of an old
frontier gold-miner.)
"You know it buddy."
"I'm a photographer, I'm just taking a picture."
"Ah. Is this yours?"
"Oh, no. The chair isn't mine. It's a design chair. I'm just shooting it.
The picture is mine."
"Um." I have to speed things up, as I am still carrying two heavy armloads
of refuse. "Is there anywhere else I can see your pictures?"
"Magazines."
"Let's see. Do you have an electronic headquarters which I may spam in the
convenience of my home, without the purchase of costly periodicals?"
He hands me his business card, indicating he is somehow related to hip hop
legend GURU (It reads: Wolfgangstahr.) I am unsure of how to proceed after
pocketing the card. He decides on continuing the chit chat.
"So. What are you up to?" glancing down at the mafia work I again pick up.
"I'm just on a stroll. It's a beautiful day. Just a walk. You know,
nothing conspicuous." I walk off quickly.
And continue walking for what seems like miles. After emerging from
the tunnel, I cross a bridge over the city's transit loop, pass by the
mall/convention center, and on and on. Some might have suggested that I
walk on back alley streets, believing themselves to be clever, but,
obviously, as I am doing this in the middle of the first sunny day after
lots of rain and snow, I am a badass, and couldn't give a shit.
I have, however reached a point where I am willing to gnaw off my own
arms,
and live without the use of the appendages, just so I don't have to carry
this hallway anymore. After slipping on an icy banana peel, sending the
planks ascatter, I mutter things involving my lawyer and the ease with
which I could win a domestic abuse case. I again take up my consignment,
but the pleasant dancing sugarplums of wife beating soon disappear from my
mind, as the 5-oh rolls up on me. They believe their flashy green sirens
and ornamented park ranger outfits will calm the people and encourage me
into submitting to their authority, but they are mistaken. I recognize the
shallow spirit of a Canadian mountie when I see one. I continue along my
business.
"Where are you going with that wood?"
"Home. Gonna eat me some dinner tonight!"
"What?"
"I's cookin' tonight."
"The wood?"
"Well, how do you cook?" I press him with this one. "With an
oven[italics]?"
"Yes, I do."
"It runs on..."
"Uh, Gas?"
"Well, some of us can't afford gas, Herr Police officer."
"Alright, joker. Let me see some ID."
My initial boasting was only an attempt to disguise that I was
urinating all
over my one pair of pants. It seemed to only exacerbate matters. Both my
boasting, and my pissing. I make like I'm about to reach for my wallet
(which I don't have.)
"I've got it, right here, I just have to- um, lemme, ah -Do you mind
holding this for me for a second?"
He takes the frames, and then the planks, and then I walk away. Quick, but
not too quick.
I wave to Herr Schaeffer again on my way back in the apartment, a
little
shaky, but glad to be home. I find my wife almost awake, suprisingly.
She's sort of raised off the pillow, but not by much. I declare that I
couldn't have picked a better time to decide to clean out a ton of garbage
>from the apartment. I describe to her my encounter with the police
officer.
"I don't believe you."
"It's true. Honest."
"No, I don't believe you. Why didn't he chase after you, yell at you, call
for help? Huh?"
"Don't you see? His own strict adherence to the letter of the law trapped
him. He couldn't set down that wood, it would have been littering. That
wood has to be placed in the proper recycling container, or it is a
violation of statue Eleventy hudred something. And he couldn't chase after
me, as he had left his car running, the abandonment of which would have been
a parking violation. Towable within the city limits. I used his own rules
against him. It was perfect."
"You're lying."
And that's when I beat her.

explode-fry

even the president of botswana's press secretary is honoring Hunter Thompson in his death. From a recent press release:

One of this Office's consistent complaints in recent times has been the tendency among some journalists to sex up their stories with invented quotations. In this respect this week's edition also includes a letter to the Editor of the local Monitor newspaper, one of the publications in the Mmegi stable, with respect to an article we believe misrepresented the Attorney General [E 1].

But then, as the godfather of "gonzo journalism", Hunter S. Thomson, who died this week of an apparent suicide, once noted:

"Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous thing in the context of professional journalism."

- Dr. Jeff Ramsay, Press Secretary to the President (26/2/05)

Contacts:
Office Telephone: (267) 3975154 & Facsimile: (267) 3902795.
Cell: (267) 71318598.
E-mail: jramsay@gov.bw & jramsayop@yahoo.co.uk.

s'il vous ferait plaisir

interrogation

you may have read bob herbert's columns about the canadian citizen tortured on behalf of the US. here is a pakistani with family in the US, who gets interrogated everywhere he goes
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC04Df05.html

la vie a deux s'arrete

il me paresse qu'ils me vont envoyer au quelque pays francophonie. il faut que je obtiens un penpal qui parle francais