A dream

It has taken me an hour to recover from the dream I had last night. It is now 5:30 in the morning and I am sitting at the computer in my white briefs, as usual, typing as I have been for the last hour. But I have barely shaken the dream. I was attending a screening of a film made by Sharon, a black woman who used to be the secretary where I once worked, but she was stealing from various vendors in the mall complex where the screening was to take place. She was stuffing audio books into the coats and packages of her friends, convincing them that it was OK. When I realized I had been party to this, I tried to get away, terrified one of us would end up in prison. Walking from one side of the mall to the other, I nearly fell over a waterfall and held on to a ledge by by hands, while people nearby looked on in concern and alarm and I was embarrassed. Sharon was still trying to convince me that her actions were acceptable practice. Lee and Lyn came to the screening of the film. I was asked what I thought after the film aired and I said there was commercial potential for this minor, independent film. But my attempts at careful praise were met with more than scorn, they were met with vindictiveness, the mob turned against me, Lyn stole my car and drove with Lee inside, recklessly away, no one would even have coffee with me, Nate Kohn was there, shaking his head, no one would help me, I proceeded to walk away, to try to get back to a home I was convinced was probably no longer even there, and it seemed Sharon and her friends and their film were going to be a success, that my comments were of no use, they had denigrated a film effort that was obviously more informed and better made than my old school way of looking at things could ever understand. Barefoot, friendless, I began the long walk back, away, perhaps to homelessness, alone, the world disgusted by my insistence that stealing was wrong. Everyone else was drinking expensive coffee drinks and wearing the clothes of aesthetes and artists. I was shoeless. I didn't even know where my car was. I was out of place. No matter where I went or tried to go, I was out of place.

I know this has something to do with my upcoming IRS audit. How can the poorest man be audited TWICE by the IRS -- and it costs to be audited, in time and bank records, it costs me money I don't have, sending me deeper into debt -- and how can the victim not become paranoid that there is a plot behind this? The last time I was audited, I had to give up freelance writing as a primary means of income, because I did not understand the vagaries of bookkeeping. I tried getting a job. That didn't work out so well either. This time, even with an accountant and every attempt to be scrupulous in our complicated and unorthodox businesses of survival (for Pete's sake, I am a genital display model for university medical students, among everything else I do, and I haven't had a day off of work for NINE MONTHS, working seven days a week, not a single day), I'm still being audited or, as some would say, persecuted.

There is joy in this, real joy.

Only the dream disturbed me. I think I'm over it now. I have coffee. If I mention "Rantoul and Die," someone will read this.

Menno Poker Girls

Come to mama.

Terror Alert -- Poker report incoming!

No one brought snacks, not counting the requisite root beer from the Admiral.
This was to be a serious night of poker.

Spike, the night's big winner ($8.55!) laughed maniacally. TW expressed awe at PG's run of "miracle hands" -- a tricky full house in straight five-card draw game and a surprising flush. The Admiral used new bluffing strategies and refined his poker face, taking $2.10 by evening's tally. And JD conferred out of the room with TW, trying to devise a Super Full House hand. JD also raised the bet during the anarchy round. Given that he usually folds, this was a first of some proportion.

Two new games were introduced. One, Between the Sheets, put scowls on everyone's face, but the pot became extremely large, especially when TW drew a card that matched one of the showing cards and had to double the pot. Because that amount was more than anyone could count, and because all the players are good Christians, it was decided to limit the indebtedness to $2, but TW never recovered from the blow.

The evening had more $2 bets to come. The stakes ran high all night. But, in the end, because the good Christian players let Spike win and laugh maniacally, all players ended up in the black, which is a miracle no one knows how to resolve.

The other new game was called Best Flush and has nothing to do with the toilet adjoining the playing table, although the anarchy round was dealt with The Admiral inspecting that same toilet. He did not object to being out of the room as cards were dealt, because after all, Jake, it's Anarchy.

Anarchy was a topic of discussion. Mulch is so five minutes ago. The Catholic Worker House Anarchists can be heard in several radio interviews, links to which are listed here:

http://www.will.uiuc.edu/willmp3/ktf060806.mp3

http://will.uiuc.edu/am/ktf/default.htm

http://pgregoryspringer.com/8am/wrfu/wrfu.html

Ultimately, TW folded during the anarchy round. And he won, regardless.

In the choice between going to church, attending family reunions, visiting gravestones, or playing poker on Wood Street on Thursday nights, there is little doubt where all righteous believers do belong.

PG

Traffic Court

After all the hours I spent thinking about what I was going to say and how to say it, they practically booted me out after a minute.  The case had been dismissed.  The cop had stayed safely back in Homer preying upon the innocent.  I guess it may have paid off to write Homer's mayor, who asked me to reconsider my decision to avoid Homer and to cancel all my business dealings with the town.  At this point, I am considering reconsidering, but not yet reconsidering. 

Onwards to the IRS audit!

Two old Mexican men sitting by a cactus in Cholula, drinking pulque, laughing, argue over Ozymandias versus Ecclesiastes

We are Ken. Ken is the Flower, the Epitome, the Inevitable. Since the first War over Taxes, since Benjamin Franklin said, "Let us be wise, early to bed, wealthy, and Ken," since the Constitutional Convention, since "Happiness"was euphemized from the original "Property" until "Sustainable" came to mean "Eternally Never," since corporations became legal human beings, our own flag-waving Frankenstein monsters, since the lynching of slaves until the beheading of soldiers, we have been on the road to Ken. Whitman and Melville more or less missed out; Whitman tried, but... too gay. Melville evaporated into his clerk books. 9/11 was for Ken. And then we die.

We own and die, like Ken. We eat at Applebee's and Le Cirque, and then we die. We buy Big Houses like Ken and no one wants to clean them, except those who are not yet Ken, who have to learn to speak Ken's language. Oprah screams, A New Car... for Ken. The price is right: A New Car. Perhaps a Boat. Something to polish. Something smooth and green to mow. And then we die. But we were Ken. Let the world never forget: we were Ken.

The war has been lies, lies, and damnable lies, and failure, failure, failure, says Hilary. And we should trust you this time because...?

Because I am Ken, answers Rumsfeld. Because of my goodness. My goodness.

All who are Ken relish and thrive on Perpetual Global Conflict, but the legacy of Ken will clearly be the Conundrum, the simple phrase that followers of Ken believed, that Oxymoron, that Impossible Hope: "Military Solution."

Not even Ken saw the End coming. He came, he saw, he conquered, he bought brand names. He was branded, the greatest brand name of all. He was Ken.

and then we lay ourselves down and die but without ken