Overheard Starbuck

"Touch the eternal, go ahead. You know you want to."

"I'm agreeing with you. but what I'ld like to know is, what do you think they're doing doing when they're not watching you? It's not like you go anywhere or do anything. What's all their driving around, constant communications and chemical weapons for?"
---"You've heard about the WPA in the 1930's, the New Deal's 'Works Project Administration'? These people are Nixon's 'Drug War' version,--thirty-five years and counting. When there are no human targets to neutralize, they're providing 24/7 security for each other, for family members and friends. ... Ever so often one might witness an actual crime and because of their network they're quick to call the police. .. . They also provide reliable witnesses and alibis: respectable people willing to swear in court to whatever the police might require."
"How do you come up with this stuff?"

"She's always mistaking indifference for kindness."
---"She defaults to benevolence."

"I swear I'll work harder than any man to build you a house on this land."
---"Much obliged. And we'll have us a passel of young-uns to help with the plant-en, the brand-en and the chores?"
"I reckon."

"It's not like there will come a day when you find out they're dead and you're finally free."
---"That's one of the problems with gov't security programs."

"How do you know she didn't like me?"
---"She didn't stay for coffee. Did she tell you her name; give you her phone number? "
"She liked me for as long as it took. I'm not looking for a friend."
---"They have women (or men) to reward you if you do what they say and they have people to punish you if you don't."
"You make it sound like a cult."
---"In a perfect world they're the cult to end all cults."
...

"Let me see if I understand. No sex until I find that special someone willing to spend hours with me in conversation and activities I otherwise wouldn't bother about? And not until she's sufficiently dazzled by my wit and wisdom and worn down with food, drink, and gifts she consents to do what I just did with that stranger? And with no guarantees? --Who lives like that? Characters in chic flicks?"
---"Have fun?"
"It's the only game in town."
---"You and your future wife will have no problems sharing?"
"Grow up. What's mine is his, what's his is mine."

"Isn't it odd that the best fall colors around here are found on trees in cities and towns?"
---"Yeah the indigenous oaks are not as colorful as the maples that are replacing them and the dust-bowl wind-breaks are no competition for the plants nurseries sell."
"Though there are many different shades of brown."
---"As many shades of brown as mid-summer shades of green?"
"I can't tell. The greens are around much longer, and the yellows and reds are more striking. Did you know that orange until recently was perceived as yellow, or was it brown?"
---"You mean the name 'orange' wasn't in common use until recently? I read the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for 'blue'. In almost every culture it's a major naming free-for-all for brown, orange, purple, pink and grey."
"Men seldom have use for words like 'yellow', 'purple', 'pink': I wonder if they're able to see those colors?"
---"Don't confuse the lack of a name with the absence of experience."
"But there's nothing without words."

"Are there many corporate sponsors for the anti-abortion movement?"
---"Churches?"
"I'm trying to understand how they got branded as 'pro-life', while being pro-capital punishment and pro-war. It's bizarre."
---"The fees adoption agencies charge their clients, for the babies volunteers save from abortion, are instrumental in keeping their pro-life message separate from those non-lucrative life-affirming causes?"
"Bingo."

"I had no idea what the problems of life were. To live with all my might seemed to me easy. To learn where there was so much to learn seemed pleasant and almost of course. To lend a hand if one had a chance was natural, and if one did this he enjoyed life because he could not help it and without proving to himself or others he ought to enjoy it."

---"O Lucky Man."

"If there's a 'criminal underclass' doesn't it follow there would also be a 'law and order' overclass?"
---"Predator and prey?... Oh, you mean like court enforcers and informants? The Untouchables?"
"Yes but more like a demographic, a security lifestyle--doing what they see as the essential jobs in every American community--made up of tens of thousands of cop, military, 'justice', homeland security AND informant families."
---"Law and order royalty?"
"Law and order dynasties."
---"Aren't all those groups tax-funded with legislative oversight and voter approval? Anyway doesn't their constant warfare against crime, rogue nations and now 'the threat from within' keep them too busy to organize?"
"Like Tom and Jerry?"

"Isn't there somebody you can service? Anybody?"

"It's not only that people on tv are more attractive, more articulate..."
---"Wealthier and thinner..."
"...it's that they are ceaselessly upbeat and optimistic."
---(recites) "'Where seldom is heard a discouraging word...'"
...
"I want a crew to follow me around with video cameras. To write my lines --my ad-libs and my speeches; do my hair, clothes, makeup and publicity. To market to the world--the US initially--the concept, the brand that is me."
---"Forget '15 minutes of fame': everybody needs their own production company."

"Doesn't he know it's ok if he's gay? Nobody around here minds. ... There's a YMCA about a mile away."
---"He likes being an outlaw. He thinks he's bad ... You'ld never understand."
"And you do?"
---"I am a woman."
"He's into leather, rap music and mountain-biking. You like quilting, Celine Dion and collect shoes that cost a week's pay."
---"You just don't get it, do you?"
"Blow-jobs against the Empire?"
---"Homophobe!"

"They have drugs that make you want to die and they never stop.They have the law on their side."
---"Huh?"
"I'm telling you this so you might understand who I am and what they've become."

"You're a grown man. You have your selfish bothersome needs. But how many men on earth wouldn't need her?"
---"Economy of scale."
"That's right Squirt."

"Somedays are truly inspiring. I almost feel clairvoyant."

---"Somedays I feel I'm worth more alive than dead."

"All this and the promise of heaven too."

"If government security agencies like Homeland Security require secrecy in order to be effective doesn't it follow that individuals adept at keeping secrets will assume control? Alcohol, drug, wife and child abusers? Closet-cases of every sexual persuasion? People from the shame-ridden and self-loathing end of humanity's self-esteem spectrum?"
--"Don't forget loyalty-junkies and those hard-wired for hierarchy."
"Do we really want to give damaged people like that carte blanche over the rest of us ordinary neurotics?"
--"Who said anything about 'give'?"

"A festering and deep-seated ambivalence..."

"You're nobody until you have an agent, until you get representation."

----"A college degree, an honorable discharge from the military, never being convicted of a crime are nothing?"

"A substantial inheritance and a sizable stock portfolio will also open doors."

---"Abracadabra."

"I'm perplexed at how willingly Americans believe that all governments are corrupt. Taking their hard-earned dollars through taxes to fund lord-knows-what crazy, inefficient, immoral pork-barrel projects and agencies. Yet when it comes to the police, courts and the military, none of that skepticism, hatred, or libertarian-fashioned monetary concern applies. ... State governments can barely keep the schools--for the children!-- open and state office holders have a difficult time keeping their family members off the state payrolls. However when it comes to the arrests, trials, convictions and incarcerations of our fellow citizens, government employees-- police, prosecutors, jailers and judges---are above reproach. All 'Solomon's', models of judicial fairness, exemplars of bureuacratic incorruptability?"
---"Heroes everyone. ... They got a great union. ... A lot of people owe them favors; people you and I would never want to meet."

"Who celebrates Columbus Day?"

---"Teachers?"

"Columbus Day is a holiday for school-children, government employees and pedophiles."

---"Italians?"

"'Moonlight becomes you'."

---"That's a poetic fallacy."

"I'm trying to pay you a compliment."

---"No I don't think so."

"His boss told him he can't give cash bonuses this year. Gas prices are killing him. He said it's because the military in Iraq and Afghanistan have to import their fuel and Humvess get lousy gas mileage."
---"He's blaming gas prices on the President's War on Terror?"
"Should we call the tip-line?"
---"Are they still awarding prizes, giving coupons?"

"Lately I've been spending a lot of time sitting around and waiting: no music, no conversation, no books or magazines--waiting."
---"Time ain't money if all you got is time."
"Anyway, I've been noticing these recurring sensations."
---"Memories?"
"Memories of places."
---"Not girl-friends, parties, winning moments, life's-milestones? --I forgot who I'm talking to.--Postcards, slides, movies or video?"
"They're not very visual, and they don't last long, but they're very distinct and pleasurable. Like someone's opened a slat on a window blind on outdoor places I've visited."
---"Nature voyeur."
"I get a quick look. I can name the place I'm shown but I can't recognize precise details. I might know for example that's the riverview outside Springfield we stopped at once but I couldn't tell you why I know it is. I don't exactly see what I'm remembering but I'm certain of 'where' I'm remembering and the best part is, it feels good."
---"How pre-dementia praecox-ish."
"If senility's like this, that would be sweet."
---"Dreamer."

"'The stars are God's daisy-chain.'"

---"Brad, Jennifer, Colin, Scarlett, Angelina, Russel??"

"Now that's just wrong."

"I've been wondering if I'm under surveillance. If a few of my neighbors working for FEMA, or whatever part of the alphabet, are reporting on me whenever I step out the door or watching me with see-through-the-wall radar."
---"Paranoid much?"
"Why couldn't somebody in one of the houses or apartments nearby be paid to watch me on a screen in bright glowing colors while I'm stuffing my face, picking my nose, taking a crap or wanking? The technology doesn't exist?"
---"Who would want to watch you?"
"Who wouldn't? Working at home for Homeland Security? It's a dream job for law-and-order types. Crime victims and/or bigots weaned on tv cop shows and urban folkore: Dirty Harriets secured in their rooms while securing their communities, their nation...."
---"Ok now..."
"'...This crap's dedicated to the freaks secretly watching out there! The eyes and ears of crime prevention, the heroes of Community Policing-- now on the frontline of Homeland Terrorism Defense! Ya'll know the service you're providing, the invaluable information you're gathering. This crap's for you!'"
---"I mean who would want YOU watched? Who pays, who benefits?"
"You're saying I couldn't be an enemy of the state? A fabricated but necessary threat to the status quo: the Masons, the Mormons, the sex-klubbers? I've seen things: I've seen cops in uniform getting freebies from hookers; I've seen boxes of drugs delivered in the middle of the day to the Art Institute's shipping dock; I've seen pedophile pimps working the City's Zoo."
---"Sure you have."
"I could be a witness."
---"You can be a pest."
"Wouldn't that be reason enough?"

"Are there homosexual rapists?"

---"Yeah but who cares? ..Oh. You're wondering if there 's such a crime as homosexual rape? Sexual assault I think is the unisex term that covers it."

"Are there many men in jail for sexually assaulting men?"

---"If you're talking about pedophiles, men who prey on boys then...

"No. Is there among the 'one-in-ten' male population about the same percentage of rapists who assault men as there are men in the majority who rape women?"

---"You're thinking if it makes sperm then...? You've been reading your sister's old college text-books again?"

"Why is there so little news, so few media reports about homosexual rape?"

---"It's because gays are so well organized that whenever anyone picks up on his gaydar the first signs of unwanted sexual aggression a general alarm is sounded throughout the community. All fun and games are put on hold as the gay-rapist-to-be is hunted and cornered...ever see the movie "M"?...He is then blindfolded and wisked away to a safe house/spa...much like what the Catholic Church does after-the-fact for it's exposed pedophile priests...where as many volunteers as necessary sex-bomb the dangerous deviant for as long as it takes until all urges to rape are forever eliminated. ... That or gay sex is so readily available, so free, that there's simply no reason for any gay man to rape another man. They're like Margaret Mead's Polynesians."

"She's a call-girl and he's her beard."

---"Not her pimp? Her pro-cure-er?"

"In these post-feminist times? Hardly. I'm guessing from her clothes, make-up and hair, she has sponsors: maybe one of the car dealers up the road or a county office downtown."

---"She's dressed like she's headed for a job interview."

"The many uses of office furniture."

---"He looks like he works in home repairs, where denim and flannel never go out of style. Fake tan though."

"He probably does but today he's working for her, I mean them."

"When God gives you shit, you make mudpies."

"When I say JUMP! You say...?!"

---"WHO!"