Overheard Starbuck

"Why did you let them do it? You were watching them for years."
---"Whatta you mean let? We were tolgirlfriends d by the highest authorities to ignore what was going on. It was none of our concern; it was under control."
"And you believed them despite everything you heard and saw and smelled? This isn't Guantanamo, this is the suburbs!"
---"They weren't doing it to any of us."
"You and your buddies and your wives and girl friends are all freakin' heroes, do you know that?
---"Fuck you."
"Big man."

"Do you meditate?"

---"Does chewing gum count?"

"When he's using the microwave I've seen him stand there and wait until all four final beeps are over."
---"Well if he's afraid of the radiation..."
"No he says he's noticed he feels more generous, more magnamous overall, if he doesn't rush it to finish its job. Those four beats are 'like ascending notes on a musical scale', or 'four steps he's taking up a spiral staircase'"
---"Beeps. Four beeps."
"That's what I said beeps."

"...lifelong rehabilitation."
---"Lifelong rehab? Is that something like 'permanent revolution'?"

"I feel lucky that gambling never appealed to me."
---"Money has waay too much power over you. ... You have real issues with money."
"I'm sorry."
---"What if gambling is the key to the door that unlocks a whole new you? That would open your dormant life like a flower opens to the light of the sun?"
"Primal Debt-Management Therapy?"

"Take that ring off her finger and she'ld disappear, poor little princess."
---"Strip him of that suit, his PDA and the reasons to have them and..."
"He'ld be you."

"Do you think our military interrogators in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan take it easy on pregnant detainees?"
---"Our people are trained professionals and one can't extract vital information from a dead terrorist. Don't you watch 24? I imagine the Israeli's have passed on techniques they've developed over the years which deal specifically with pregnant women."
"How about the sick, the lame, the insane, the dying?"
---"Again, our people are professionals. Non-coms may do the softening up, like in Abu Ghraib, but ultimately a team of officers are responsible for the quantity and quality of information obtained.--Careers are on the line."
"Children? Jews? Christians?"
---"Christians? Jews? --you're funny. In the US military there are protocols for every contingency. When American lives are on the line, you can be sure our people know exactly what to do. Remember the interrogators in the military, the CIA, DEA, FBI, etc., are Americans. They drive the same cars, eat the same food, watch the same movies and games on tv as you and your neighbors. Don't worry about the unborn terrorists, insurgents or detainees. "

"They put you with those people to see how you'ld behave, to see what you would do."
---"They?"

"Death doesn't move them because they're fast and efficient, or dedicated and courageous. Death doesn't phase them because they're always given more pressing, if brainlessly simple, tasks to perform. .. Death is like choosing jam or honey for their toast. ... Your death is necessary--resistence is futile and all that--their deaths are impossible. They're members of one of the immortal swarms."
---"Swarms? Toast?"

"I'm getting tired of this-- one more time: it's not your fault she chose the Mouseketeers over you."
---"Yeah but..."
"And at the time didn't Uncle Walt offer you a place on his team? Ticket-taker, usher, doorman or towel boy"?
---"Yeah but..."
"It was nobody's fault the nurses messed up the drugs. I know what you think about dosing people, but those drugs are specifically adapted to ease the selected into their new roles and responsibilities as contributors to Fantasyland. Futhermore, they've been doing it for years and no one complains."
"---"Yeah most don't know about the drugging."
"Now this is crucial so pay attention-- it wasn't about you. She was the prize, they weren't after you. If there was anything special about you, would you now have problems getting dates? You were never the target: grow up already. ... Keep on thinking the way you're thinking and you're going to die alone replaying nothing but the lost hours of the lost days of your life. She'll die--maybe also alone--but not with any thoughts of you or of a life lost. She'll have the memories of the men they gave her and all the women she helped free from men like you. Capice?"
---"I understand. I'm sorry for my jealousy and selfishness in the face of her need for personal power and my childishness in response to their benevolence. I know what a fool I was but what can I do; how can I now contribute to the future America they possess? Do you know anyone that can help make it right? Anyone who can put me on the right track?"
"Sorry Joe, me love you long time, but me no can do. --It don't work that way, it's still A-Number 1 secret. Gotta keep the Mouseketeer movers and shakers, judges and juries, doctors, social workers, druggists, security-ops and everyone who works for Fantasyland safe. Gotta keep what the Daddies and Mommies do for fun and to save their marriages from the kids, don't you know?"
---"Until the kids themselves are big enough for the 'Matterhorn' ride?"
"Something like that."

"Celebrities never seem to win lotteries."
---"But lottery winners become celebrities."
"Almost."
---"Of a sort. ... To their relatives and friends then."
.....

"I wonder what it's like to be the kind of celebrity people want to touch?"
---"You mean like rock stars?"
"Eeeuuw. no! I mean like kings, holy people, the President, the Pope...Mother Teresa."
---"Mother Teresa worked among the diseased and dying; outcasts no one wanted to look at or talk to, let alone touch."
"Oh."
---"You can be my celebrity Nadine."

"What a strange man."
---"He's always exhausted; he's a gay dad with two kids."
"That's nice. Adopted or surrogates?"
"Old school, he's married in the eyes of the church and state."
"Does his wife know he's gay?"
---"Did she go into the marriage with 'eyes wide shut'? --We think so. But she's the work-a-holic; he works part-time and chauffeurs around the kids. ... He's the more sociable one; she gets these headaches."
"I wonder how many gays and lesbians 'play' that hard for the other side--are married to heterosexuals? There're probably less now then there were even 10 years ago. ..Except maybe for Christians and Moslems?"
---"Play? .. It's none of our business."
"You're right, it's not illegal."
---"It's not?"
"No gay person's ever been thrown in jail for marrying a straight. Have they?"
---"It's not grounds for annulment or divorce?"
"Contracts are different--in the eyes of the law. It might depend in which state the couple were married. I don't know. I'm pretty sure annulments don't pay off as much a divorces, and if there're are kids..."
---"Shit! All that from an itch and a notion to possess and belong--from flower-strewn aisles and promises of eternal love to lawyers and judges. It's horrible."
"Life is messy."
---"I hate preceedings in which strangers arbitrate over my life."
"Then you hate doctors too."
---"Yeah but with doctors at least I'm there, my physical presence is an essential part of the process. With lawyers it's all 'by the order of the court until the party of the first-part, from this day forward your life, from the great state of Indiana by the power vested in me, is hereby declared duly and officially forever changed, here's the bill.'"
"Everybody hates lawyers until they need one."
---(mumbles) "I'm so a coward."
"What?"
---"Nothing."

"When do you think there are more free drinks given away? New Year's Eve or St. Patrick's Day?"
---"More people party on New Year's Eve."
"Yeah but more politicians are in their bars on St. Patrick's Day!"
---"Let me get you another one--how about a double espresso? ... If you're only talking about bars within fifty miles of Chicago or Boston and counting the number of times someone says 'let me buy you a drink' then ..."
"Ireland too!"
---"Saint Patrick's Day isn't celebrated in the non-Irish parts of the world."
"Damn shame."
---"Drink up".

"I knew the capitals of the fifty states before I understood how rivers, even the river a mile from my school, made most cities and towns possible."
---"Students don't go on eighth-grade trips to rivers. ... Rivers are not seats of government with huge old buildings with columns and domes. ... Rivers don't have colleges or sports teams. They're not symbols of civic pride."
"On a blank map of the US I can point to the location of each and every state. ... I know their names, where there are in relationship to each other and a little bit about when they first appeared but I know almost nothing about how those places got there."
---"So you enjoy looking at maps and you're not so interested in history or politics? --Or anthropology??"
"I'm amazed at how much time I spent on the names and map-locations of man-made over naturally occurring places and so little attention to the 'how' those 'things' got there and what's becoming more and more important the 'why' of them."
"'Why this river? Why this mountain? This highway? This town?'"
"Exactly."
---"That's crazy. You can have a conversation with a stranger about where some place is and maybe when and how it got that way, but you can't go around talking to people about 'why' a place--a river or a town-- exists. There're no ready answers for those questions."
"There's no there there?"
---"There're too many answers. ... Who cares? Who has that kinda time?"
"Who! I forgot who! Who made this town? Who made these structures? Who gives the names? Who did this?!"
---"I give up."

"'Her lips needed no lipstick.' Now you say it."
---"Her lips needed no lipstick."
"It sounds different when a woman says it."
---"Who is she?"
"Who?"
---"Her. The one who doesn't need lipstick."
"She's no one: a figment of my imagination, a construct."
---"Why are you wasting my time talking about people that don't exist?"
"I'm sorry. ... Did you get to see that George Clooney movie you were talking about last week?"
---"Yes!! ..."

"What do you have against America's Christians? ... What do you think's their biggest sin? Their support of Bush's wars...his economic policies?"
---"No the churches've been sending their own kids over there, and appear to be concerned that their poorest members are falling further into poverty. I figure they're just brainwashed and stupid or greedy."
"So what is it about them?"
---"They refuse to decriminalize prostitution. Their Christian fervor makes it political suicide for law-makers to talk about requiring state or federal health and labor oversight over sex workers and the porn industry."
"Well duh."
---"So by default local police and not-always-so-local organized crime cartels share 'regulatory' duties over the workers and customers and are free to exploit or persecute otherwise lawful citizens as they choose. ...And the kicker is they've been doing so for generations."
"But that has nothing to do with Bush and the neo-cons: that's how it's been in America since the beginning I imagine".
---"Exactly. Those blue laws enforce slavery...and no one in politics dare do a thing about it."
"Whoa, Randy. Don't the libertarians advocating for the decriminalization of marijuana also describe their pot smokers as 'persecuted and law abiding'?".
---"Yeah but don't police officers, enforcers of the most basic laws of society, experience more one-on-one relationships with prostitutes then with pot dealers and their products?"
"Your suggesting prostitution is more problematic for law enforcement, for American democracy, then the war on drugs?"
---"More problematic and more often. ...You've heard the joke, 'what's the difference between a hooker and a cop-groupie or a cop's mistress'?"
"What is?"
---"A hooker can be arrested."
"My father says the non-taxable wealth of America's churches is another form of taxation for us tax-payers. He calls it a 'sin tax', but you're saying something different."
---"Does anyone have any idea how many sex acts a day in America are under the control or 'supervision' of organized crime and law enforcement? How dependent our sex lives have become on their people and their 'security'? It's a secret no? ... I picture cops, gangsters and holy men as tag-team dungeon masters: champions in World Class Sexual Exploitation."

""It's not only that your life means nothing to them---who are you anyway? It's that disabling and killing and facilitating the carnage is nothing but a job, and for most of them a good job."
---"I don't want to hear this."
"Seeing you, seeing those others, seeing anyone as a person and not a thing will not change that."
---"Stop it."

"After I stormed out of the kitchen I sat on a lawn chair in the garage for almost an hour--at a loss for what to do. --Should I stay or should I go?"
---"Stewey."
"The growing cold from under the door and off the floor on my knees, nose, butt and elbows at first amplified the pain and doubt I was feeling. My muscles stayed clenched like they were during the arguement. Then as the cold continued up my legs and spread over my arms, back and face I could see things change. There's was the hurt and there's was the cold and there's was the cold, hurt me. Then the cold hurt was distinctly not the same hurt that brought me there...and then I was no longer the same hurt me. Right before I stood up to go I got the impression the cold was slowly but relentlessly mocking me and my situation."
---"Jello!"

"Wasn't that glamorous?"
---"Clamorous?"

"She didn't see my erection as the compliment it was."
---"Why are you telling me this?... Did she file a complaint? ... Is there someone you can talk to, a priest, a minister--your trainer? ... It's not funny. You don't want to get on that list; you'll never get off. ... Yes Chad, the physiological is political."

"Ever so often I see play across your face pictures of the little men that made you what you are today. ... All that running you did in your teens: did you ever stop to notice that you were running towards them, not away from them? What is the Jesuits say about their boys? ... They don't care about your cars, your university degrees, your bigotry, your friends in politics or your antique Santa Claus figurine collection--but they enjoy how much you do--they only care that you've made them flesh and keep them alive. ... Cruelty becomes you ."

"I was a happy kid for reasons I now know had little to do with reality."
---"If you knew then what you know now, would you've been as happy? ... Would you know what you know now?"
"A dreamy kid who unlike most of my kind didn't see his dreams come to life in movies, music or in books until my late teens. ... A nerd who was no good in math or art and not much better in sports."
---"Polymorphously happy.--A useless nerd is a dork, by the way. ... Are you ever as happy now as you were then?
"I can't think about happiness. Since becoming an adult I've files to the ceiling of topographic maps for sadness and depression but happiness remains off limits--terra incognita."
---"I wasn't gonna say anything but I've noticed the cold fusion of your aura--its dull pulsing glow. When people like you go off... ... I can picture you as a kid, oblivious to the adult world. I can see you on a summer's evening running in the backyard secretly imagining yourself a firefly--unaware of Disney's Tinkerbell. Never king of the fireflies, but half-boy half-firefly; more friend to them then they to you--neither here nor there, signaling to no one."
"Thanks for the memory."

"I was dropping and knocking things over all day."
---"We're you rushed?"
"No it was my day off--I was on 'Naomi time'. ... It felt like I wasn't quite in my body. As if everything I was doing was being done six or eight inches up, down, to the right or left from where I normally do it."
---"The man behind the curtain took the day off too. ..The rider wasn't seated in the saddle. ..Elvis had left the building. --You ever hear about 'walk-ins'? ..You were doing a little walking out."
"Is everything weird that happens because of UFOs?"
---"Carlos Castenada says the ancient Toltec Indians of Mexico knew all about 'walk-ins'.
"And here I thought I was experiencing early symptoms of some incurable neurological disorder .... A mystical-religious explanation for tragedy is always more reassuring, if less plausible, then say for example a medical one? --Thank you Don Juan."
---"If it is a serious disease, you'll be making up your own religious explanations for it sooner or later."
"Me? Never."

(reads) "'He was the solitary mad man. The whole sane society was leagued together not to save but to slay him. ... I thought I had a right to be alarmed because I was creeping through the bowels of the earth in the dark and there was a man who would destroy me. What would it have been like if the destroyer had been up in the daylight and had owned all the earth and commanded all the armies and crowds. How if he had been able to stop all the earth so to smoke me out of my hole or kill me the moment I put my nose out in the daylight. What was it like to deal with murder on that scale? The world has forgotten these things.'"
---"For me the people in books speak from the past, through the author--two universes removed. I prefer the stories and characters I see on tv and in the movies. They're alive, on screen and off. ... I'm not that good with collage--it doesn't scan--I guess I'm better with montage. ... I wonder what my nephews and nieces with their game characters think of the way I watch movies and tv? --My movie stars and tv friends?"
"You got me thinking about 'smell-o-vision'."

"Can you see it?"
---"What?"
"Deep in my sad doeful eyes, on my ravaged pastry face--my secret animal smile?"
---"Ahhh..."
"I first noticed it the other day then realized it may've been smiling through me at the world for years."
---Ok, umm... Is it a frog?.. Snake?... Dolphin? ...Whale? ...Bear?... Cat? ...Dog?"
"I believe it's part coyote, snake, porpoise and bear ---a chimaera."
---"Like a griffin?"
"Yeah but my animal self's never been pasted on any inbred's coat-of-arms."
---"Mutt."
"You betcha."

(sing-song) "'Give me weed, whites and wine, then show me a sign and I'll be willing.'"
---"God you're easy. ... That song must've been written by a man. --everyman's Friday-night fantasy."
"I heard what's-her-name singing it on the oldies station."
---"'Golden Oldies' or 'Oldies All the Time'"?
"No, the one that plays 'oldies on the o's'."

---"Imagine if 'weed, whites and wine' was all it took to get anyone to do most anything."
"You mean in lieu of cash?"

---"What are 'whites'?"
"Diet pills"?

"Jesus is sleeping?"
---"That would explain a lot."

"You're essentially no one; you're practically not here."