You Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass

OK drunk people, listen up. No, no, over here. Hey! Free beer! yeah you got it, free beer, I’ll let you know where it is after these few words.

Now that I have your ever fleeting attention, I have a request.

You love drinking. I mean, really love it. You love it so much your passion for intoxication is hard pressed to stay within the confines of your home or favorite licenced drinking establishment. You want to drink in the street.

The law, well the law says you shouldn’t, but fuck the law, right? You’re the iconoclast! You’re standing up for freedom! You are a rebel!

Well, as much of an iconoclast or rebel that you could consider yourself, being an American, a member of the statistically drunkest country in the world. But I digress.

Where was I? Oh yes, getting to the point before you wander off to go laugh at a crippled duck down on lake Meritt as you finish your flask of Old Grandad whiskey.

When you finish that bottle of hooch, your sense of victory and accomplishment will only be matched in vigor with your appreciation for your fellow man, I'm sure. You’ll be a new man, the world’s problems behind you. You’ll want to celebrate this new found confidence and pride. You’ll want to holler to god, let him know you’re that much closer to him at that beautiful and serene pinnacle of inexorable elation.

You’ll want to signal to the world that you are in fact drunk, and you are in fact here, for good or ill.

You’ll want to hear the sound of breaking glass, a noise so distinctly associated with drunkenness that, being equipped with the necessary equipment to produce such a sound, you’ll want to create it.

Please, please, people. This isn’t necessary. When you feel that urge to break some glass, and your hooch bottle is just empty enough for you to part with it, don’t. Just wait until you get home.

You see, when you break that glass, toss it in the street, and gain that immediate satisfaction of its utter destruction, that seminal sacrifice to your boozy gods, it’s an inspiring moment of self indulgence, which you are living for, but think, as difficult as that may be, about those who are affected by your actions.

As surprising as it may sound, as you read this, you are not the only one who loves that drunken validation of the ability to destroy something in a moment’s notice. That’s right, you, the iconoclast, the rebel, the revolutionary drunk person, are not alone.

As startling as that may be, I do have proof of your existential connection to your community. You are not alone, and this is why.

The proof is in my tires, it’s in the street, whose sparkling splendor looks eye catching at night, but only to those pedestrians who have no concern for the treacherous threat they present to the bike riding community.

Yes, those people who ride bikes, the ones who choose not to, or just can’t afford, or have been legally mandated not to drive. They see your glassy streets differently than your glassy eyes do. And yes, I’m sure, fuck em, right? You don’t ride a bike, and if you did, you would just avoid the glass, right?

There can’t be that much, right?

Yes, drunk person, there can.

On an average ride to the local BART station, for lets say, five or ten blocks, one will encounter upwards of forty of your sacrifices to the gods of glaziery.

Add a steady and malicious flow of auto traffic to this minefield, and you’d find yourself having less of an easy time avoiding flat tires. Often, you’ll find that taking a shatter field of glass head on, praying one of the shards doesn’t find a sweet spot is a better option than being run down like the cyclist dog you are.

You might even find yourself, the cyclist, pulling these tiny shards from your tires as you cruise towards work on the BART train, dreading with each careful pluck the inevitable hiss of a twenty minute delay to your commute, making you late to work, potentially costing you your job.

You see, this is the result of your elated declarations of vicissitude. A six dollar tube and twenty minutes late every time one of the thousands of shards each bottle leaves in the road finds its home in the thin rubber of a bike tire.

Perhaps the solution here is simpler than giving up your lust for the sound of breaking glass. Maybe you just love Blondie that much, and I'm asking too much by trying to end your favorite pass time.

Alright, here's a compromise. You don't have to stop breaking glass, and we cyclists can rest assured that our tires won't be shredded to ribbons. Next time you finish off your fifth of Taaka Vodka, save the glass, take it home, and play that wonderful Blondie song, "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" up at full volume, then throw the bottle at the wall over your bed, or pile of laundry, or wherever you sleep at night. This way, you can truly experience the full breadth of benefit that your mildly destructive hobby brings.

At the very least, your body probably won't deflate from a few small holes, and you can just avoid the glass, right?

Well, San Francisco, what can I say?

There we were, standing on the edge of City hall, listening to the rantings of "liberal yahoos"
(a term coined by an acquaintance of the family, Mr. Bill O'Reilly) as Riot police stood bored in a human barricade between two dozen angry Israelites and the thousands who showed up to stand in protest of the war. I mean stand in the most cut and dry way, mind you, as there was little else going on with this crowd, save for a few raucous groups of individuals and performance artists. As the masses filed out hastily to be held up in human foot traffic on the first two blocks of the march, a group of girls known as the Brown Berets of Watsonville came to the stage. They sang with fervor and grace, the lines were simple, and they asked only that the crowd sang along so as to drive the point home, "End the war". The crowd response was nothing less than deafening silence. One drug riddled woman in pink tiger pants and a fuzzy cowboy hat leaned strong on the guard rail and sang her heart out while the other 200 spectators who had stayed behind out of respect stood complacent in their pose, poised to back down at any chance of police interaction.

The rest of the day was stunning. After joining the march, which meandered through downtown before tearing up Dolores street, more of the same group pandemic was apparent. Small talk was shared among aging hippies who carried signs promoting large scale nonprofit slogans, while others carried less direct, more creative signs and did much of the same. I overheard one man refer to the march as "more of a party than a protest" The riot police, now marching along the parade route, carried their batons and helmets lackadaisically at their hips and strolled as though burdened with such boring duty. At one point, a five minute "die in" was staged. This lasted all of twenty five seconds before the short witted crowd began standing and wandering on to Dolores park. The overall climate here: "Lets get done with this thing so I can buy a t-shirt from the socialists and a tray of garlic fries"

All I can say, San Francisco, is well done. Way to stick it to the man by getting in the way of nothing. As we marched, more guns were shipped to Iraq, more soldiers deployed, and more money flowed into the hands of Blackwater. We effectively did absolutely nothing but attest our own sense of self, establishing ourselves as the anti-establishment quadrant of California. To the speaker's credit, their words did not fall upon deaf ears. Plenty of these people listened to your claims, and I'm sure thousands are now reporting to their nearest and dearest about the thousands who were threatened with deportation after being evacuated in southern California. With any luck, they will do some reading before spouting that trash, and find out it is absolutely not true. Thanks for nothing.

At my parents urging

So, yeah, I went back to school. I didn't have much luck with it the first time I tried. I lost focus pretty easy, I don't think that will happen this as I have a strong focus this time. The first time I tried college I was solely focused on the degree, though I thought that knowing what I wanted to do with it was important. Now, I'm still focusing on the degree though, this time I don't really care what I study. Learning is learning and I need to continue practicing what it actually takes to learn, which is just a hint of discipline. Wait, it doesn't take discipline to learn, no, it takes discipline to put the knowledge to work.

I feel like a grandpa as I pull onto the campus for moving in weekend. The campus is teeming with young faced freshmen/freshwomen, surrounded by the parents that love them and that are "so proud". I remember my "move-on" day, the day I considered myself my own person. Once my parents left my sight and I, theirs, I was a free man. I was ready to make my own decisions. or at least that's what I though until I got the letter giving me the boot from formal education.

The way I pile everything onto my back, my head, and within my two arms I make sure that it will only take one trip to move everything I now own after a quarter of a century of living. Everything in one load and I still feel as though I held onto to much.

"Hey Aqualung" I think to myself as my eyes move along from freshwoman to freshwoman. Luckily I'm wearing sunglasses, shielding the true intent of my eyes from those that are falling victim. Only I know that how seductively my eyes can undress any woman.

Surrounding the entrance to the dorms, not even close to being outside of the 25 foot range that housing asks of all smokers, was a group of teenagers enjoying their first truly free cigarette. Free from listening to their parents nag to them the same rhetoric that every one uses. "You are just killing yourself. I know that you don't realize it yet, but you come to find out." I never had to deal with that as my lungs have felt the-what I would imagine to be-sting of tobacco smoke.

The shades didn't help me to see anything, while my arms where growing wary from overload, down the dimly, florescent lit hallway that seemed all too quiet to be a dorm hall. I found my room at the far end of the hallway, the farthest room I could have gotten from where I parked my car, without heading up to the next floor, the highest, the eighth floor.

There are no signs of any roommate showing up yet. Nothing in the bathroom, or anything anywhere else. I throw my things on the top bunk, staking my claim to it early(settler's rights). Grabbing the zip-lock bag from the back pack that now rests on my pile, I lock the door behind me and get back in my car.

Real Man?

Now, I've spent enough time in the shower to know that, for intents and purposes, I am a man. I've also watched enough MTV to know how "men" are supposed to dress, but I have to say that wearing a skirt is quite comfortable. Though I haven't become as comfortable yet to wear it outside the house, around the house I have taken up wearing a baggy, blue(man's color)-velvet skirt that drapes perfectly to the floor, just slightly covering my feet though not long enough to hinder my strides (or struts).

I know that most of you "men" out there are uncomfortable, for whatever reason, with my choice and opinion expressed here, and many of you may be converting that to anger, though before you start swinging your hay-makers, pilgrim, I must ask you to do one thing: On a hot summer, August afternoon, when even Californians (and there hatred for four DIFFERENT seasons) hate the sun, try on a skirt and wait for a breeze, It's like getting a blow job from Hera herself. I would like for you know one more thing before you fly off the handle and attempt (and fail) to turn me into a hate crime: I like girls, always have, and even watch girl-on-girl video when the mood strikes. So, I'm not some queer-o looking to steal your boyfriends or take you away from your half-truth relationship with that girl you described as what "might be the one" when you were so drunk that you spilled your tequila in your lap, inviting three out the five guys at your "killer Party" to "come over here and suck this dry".

Instead you might look at this as a rational look at what fashion really is. Is it trying to fit in or is it the first layer of sheltering? If your trying to fit in, then isn't being different important? I guess not if your too different. Is it the idea of fashion to find how to express your identity without giving up your inclusion? I've never really understood fashion. I wear suits to the baseball game and a jersey to the wedding. And to top it all off...sometimes...when I'm at home...I wear a skirt.

When In Southern California

My ride shows up around 11pm. The buzz from work is just wearing off, and Patty T. Nowak is at the door. I'm scuttling around my parent's place, the summer home I've commandeered while on hiatus from school. I told him I packed this morning, and now I'm looking for a suitable bag to hold a handful of socks, two T-shirts and a pair of shorts, two roman candles and a soviet paratrooper flask. I wonder how Monica is doing, wherever she is. That last e-mail still has me spinning with something that smells like regretful hope stroganoff.

Now Patty is in the kitchen, i high five him, carrying a Sierra club shoulder bag whose contents now consist of only the flask and the fireworks. His burst of laughter echoes through the house, a short syncopated HAHA! and he's back to telling my mom how the new Red Bull Promotion takes him off the streets and into the office, no more peddling for him, its all middle management heaven from here. Her laughter is constant, the kind of half drunken hysteria i have become accustomed to this summer, loose crescendo and reprise, maniacal at times.

I step over the drum set, past the table saw and the canvases, under the hanging steam cleaner to the sleeping bags on the wall shelves next to the cleaning supplies and ammunition.  I dose off into a sleepwalking daydream of my father explaining to the Fire Marshall that there are over 2000 rounds scattered throughout the contents of our newly obtained garage fire.  The firemen are ducking bullets and casings that rip through the plywood and frame boards, tossing ribbons of plastic sheet sealer and roofing insulation like smoldering tracers or the trails of a good fourth of july mortar.  My bag is now packed.  I fill my flask and we kiss my mom on the cheek, we head for the door.  On the road again.

-to be continued-

First Draft and Final Salute

oOk, I should clear this up.  Using one of these as and outlet isn't my cup of tea.  The usual recipient of my violent keystrokes is a decrepit typewriter from a late seventies JC Penny after christmas sale.  The little bastard is my best friend, but I'm ready to kill it.  As soon as I get back with a replacement.  In fact, I think I may have just broken it.  Fucking thing jams every ten seconds, throwing inconsiderately placed gaps all over the page, ruining the flow of anything it pumps out.  To make this more fun, there's no concievable way to maintain steady margins with it's hit and miss break detection, while the little ding i love so much at the end of a good machine gun burst of type comes and goes on it's own volition regardless to the carriage position, leaving massive clumps at the end of some lines, while others nearly connotate a new paragraph. 
I suppose all of this could be remedied by lowering the pace of type, drinking less while typing, and taking off the blindfold I always use, but fuck that, I've found a simpler, though more expensive remedy.  Im going to hollywood to buy a new IBM selectric for 50 bucks.  These are common self-correcting models that can be found in almost any major city center for free, but this one is different.  Jet black, angry looking, and brand new, this little fucker will certainly do the trick.  Listen for the sound of dynamite and gunfire upon my return home, that old JC Penny Model is going sky high as soon as it's replacement is turned over to the right hands. 

Here it is, a late start

How do you start something knowing it has been started in the same fashion thousands of times by others in the past couple of years? Do you handle the task as carefully as though you are the first? Maybe it's best to treat it like another commonplace action. Like sitting on the toilet. You don't necessarily take a picture every time you do it, or jump for joy for that matter. It's something everyone does, out of necessity or virtue, or for their own philosophical reasons, but If it's the first time for you, then it must be a special occasion. Being twenty two, however, when you finally take your diapers off, well, thats another deal in itself.
So to you, poor wanderer, whose net dabblings have resulted in the first utterances, the first nudge on my great journey above the ephemeral toilet-bowl of Blog-ville, Look at me! I'm doing it all by myself. Take a picture. Next step... Solid food.