sand

i feel the desert
chewing at my boots
i feel the desert of my soul
i breathe the sand and the flies and futility
as the radio spits out the daily death toll
and every dead child
turns a thousand more against me
and i see generations
born as my enemy
and if i survive
i can never go home
because no one remembers
the lessons of rome.

you keep on praying
to the same god they pray to
but he doesn't seem to be listening
to any of you
because there is no god
just chaos and silence
and power-mad priests
selling handbooks of violence

when your children starve
in your hiding-place
and you beg for an end
to this endless war
when you're inches from hell
in your patriotic cell
remember who voted
to
deadbolt
the
door.


©2007 briosphere

* * *

911 is the loneliest number

On this, the 6th anniversary of the destruction of the WTC and the beginning of the Fourth Reich, I call for a moment of silence -- not for those who died in the attack, who have already had their share of memorials -- but for the Bill of Rights, a document destroyed not in the rubble of the World Trade Center, but in its short-sighted, horribly corrupted aftermath.

Here's to you, Constitution, wherever you may rest. We took you for granted, and we will miss you more than we can even begin to imagine.

* * *

Even More Bus Stories

Today was, evidently, Emo Day on the bus. Now, for those of you too unhip to know what Emo is, I'll give you only one hint. It's NOT a large aggressive bird native to the South Pacific. But you're close. Hit up Wikipedia, because I don't have time to educate wannabe loser dweebs like you. That was a joke, by the way. A very Emo joke.

Anyway, practically the entire bus was infested with youngish males wearing skinny-leg pants, huge belt buckles, so-ironic t-shirts and women's jackets from the '80s, with huge sunglasses and greasy-choppy hair combed partially over their face, in that Spend 4 Hours In Front Of A Mirror Trying To Look Like I Don't Give A Shit style. Now, this would be completely typical on a Wednesday or Thursday night (weekends are SO Bridge-and-Tunnel, not True Emo), but this was a Tuesday morning, a work and/or school day. At first I thought there might be some free daytime concert somewhere by some band that I'm too old and not remotely cool enough to have heard of, but then I realized with a big DUH that Emo Types, just like Goths, wouldn't be caught dead at a daylight event. No, these are generally creatures of the night, with the exception of those who work at record and/or thrift shops, or the 'poseurs' who work at other retail establishments.

By the way, the difference between True Emos and poseurs, I am told, is difficult to spot until the music starts. The ones who are dancing -- more than a barely perceptible bobbing of the head -- are the poseurs. Another way to tell is to ask them, "what do you think of the band?" If they ignore you, or if they say in a monotone voice, "it sucks" -- then they are the real deal. Of course, there are those who will tell you that the poseurs are the ones who show up; that the only True Emos stay in their room in their parents' house writing suicide notes. But I digress.

OK, so what was up? I wondered. Did some trendy, rarely hiring used record store put out a 'help wanted' sign? I never found out. No point in asking one of them, because if he answered, I'd know he was the wrong one to ask.

* * *

A couple of weeks ago on the bus, I was sitting in the seats near the front that face each other across the aisle -- the ones you're supposed to reserve for seniors and the handicapped and really really fat women who take up three seats but think they can squeeze in next to you. There was a decent-sized crowd on the bus, but it wasn't anywhere near full, and there were plenty of seats left for the handicapped so I didn't feel guilty.

Across from me was a lovely young semi-hippy chick -- you know, the ones who wear long gauzy skirts and have blonde dreadlocks and nose rings but they shave their armpits and take showers. Yeah, it's rare that 'hippy' and 'sexy' go together but she was one of those. Probably 20 years old though, so I should have been ashamed at myself for repeatedly glancing in her direction. Bad dawg that I am. She smiled at me at one point, though. It was probably the mushrooms.

Anyway, her stop came, and she stood up to exit the bus. Only problem was, she was stepping on her long gauzy skirt, and when she stood, in an instant it was pulled down to the floor. Not a good day to have chosen not to wear underwear. Gave the whole bus -- including lucky me, across from her -- quite the show. She scrambled, obviously embarrassed, to untangle her skirt from her flip-flops and pull it back up, and I'm sure her face was beet red as she ran out the door -- if only I'd been looking at her face.

Did I mention being a Bad Dawg?

* * *

Speaking of which, I swear to Gawd this is true: on a different day, my buddy The Butcher and I were standing there holding on for dear life as the probably drunk bus driver careened around cars and pedestrians with abandon, when I noticed an overly clean-cut young guy sitting quietly in a seat nearby. He was wearing a tie, and I immediately recognized him as a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. You know, the Morons. They just have a look about them; even a smell. Anyway he was staring straight ahead, oblivious to my scanning of him (or deathly afraid I was some gay devil worshiper trying to make eye contact to suck out his soul or something), and I noticed his little plastic badge perfectly aligned right above his perfectly pressed shirt pocket. Sure enough, LDS. But then I couldn't help myself; I pointed out the badge to my friend and we both just started laughing uncontrollably, so much that he looked up at us nervously and people around us backed away just a little, perhaps thinking us just a couple of the crazies that frequent public transit. Why were we laughing, you ask? Well, the name on the badge said: ELDER POUNTAING.

For those of you who, shockingly enough, might not know what 'poontang' is, may I lovingly present you with the definition.

* * *

OK, so this one is not technically a bus story, but those last two reminded me of an event several years ago, when I was interrupted in the shower by the doorbell. I was almost done anyway, so I wrapped a towel around myself and, dripping wet, ran downstairs to the door. I peered through the peephole, and what to my wondering eyes did appear, but two solemn-looking old ladies holding 'AWAKE!' pamphlets. Jehovah's Witlesses. It was just too good to be true, and it wasn't even my birthday. I turned the knob, swung the door open wide, and dropped the towel.

"Won't you come in, ladies?" I said, with a cheshire cat smile. But neither one was looking me in the eye. Needless to say, they politely, if nervously, declined my invitation.

I wonder if they ever spoke of it, or if they pretended nothing had happened?

Gawd, I love fucking with The Religious.

* * *

Tap, Tap, Tappin' on Heaven's Stall...

Ah, the pungent smell of irony. The whole Larry 'I'm Not Gay' Craig debacle, even more than the rest of the NeoCon Hypocrite Downward Spiral, is a work of staggering perfection that only a collaboration between, say, John Waters, the Coen Brothers and Terry Gilliam could produce. After all, the screenplay is quirkily brilliant: rabidly anti-gay, virulently homophobic Republican Senator gets caught trying to cop some action in a mensroom from...wait for it...an undercover cop, in a 'sting' operation that is wholly unconstitutional and yet wholly in accord with tactics the NeoCon-hijacked Republican Party has been supporting for years. In other words, be careful what you wish for, Larry. If the NeoCons weren't hell-bent on making sex -- especially of the homosexual variety -- a crime, and if they weren't also hell-bent on eliminating due process and turning the Bill of Rights into -- ahem -- toilet paper, then ol' Senator Craig would be happily tapping his foot with the sovereign confidence and freedom that our forefathers intended. So while most of the Republican leadership tries to distance itself from poor Larry the Loo Lizard, primarily because their ranks seem to swell with his closeted compatriots who live in fear of being the next one outed, now we have some of them crying 'foul' at the very notion that such 'overzealous police profiling and entrapment' should occur in our precious Free Country. They're even calling for a boycott of the Minneapolis Airport where the 'incident' occurred, saying it's tantamount to a 'war on the West', whatever THAT is supposed to mean. Gosh, imagine that. An overzealous cop...in AMERICA! This is an outrage!

Of course, the thing is, I agree with them. Larry didn't do anything wrong; he simply tried to pick up on someone -- something that happens every five seconds in every bar, restaurant, gas station, grocery store, and, yes, restroom. To call it 'entrapment' isn't even the point, though that too plays a role, since entrapment is a tactic fomented by an overall disdain for the spirit of the Constitution. The fact is, it's not a crime to cruise for a date -- even if you're a creepy old ugly guy, and even if you are clumsy at it, as long as everybody's over 18. Nobody was harassed or threatened beyond the normal course of what we have to deal with from occasional creepy/clumsy fellow citizens in a free Republic, and basically the man was arrested for nothing -- unless, of course, you believe that homosexual advances in and of themselves are abhorrent and therefore wrong, and therefore should be illegal. Which, of course, is the stance that Larry Craig and other hypocrites like him have publicly espoused and attempted, in some cases successfully, to legislate. So one could say that, right or wrong, Craig is a victim of his own policies. What we here in California like to call KARMA.

So the lesson in all this, which unfortunately no fascist hypocritical NeoCon will likely learn, is that if you plant enough landmines, you might just find yourself stepping on one of them. Ask not for whom the foot taps, my friends. It taps for thee.

* * *