Overheard Starbuck

"I've always depended on the malice of strangers."

"I've been in a lousy mood all morning."
---"It's a beautiful day!"
"I've been thinking about the human-reptile hybrids. Y'know--Bush, Cheney, Rove; the criminal dynasties; the royal families and their spawn and armies worldwide."
---"Look milfs."
"God I hate them. They way they thrive on lies, ancient fears and modern violence."
---"In shorts and tee-shirts, Dude!"
"What if as the earth becomes more & more inhospitable through desertification, chemical, industrial and nuclear wastes, overpopulation and wars the reptile-hominoids drive us sapiens to extinction like we did the neanderthals?"
---" I think one smiled at me."
"What if they're the crown of creation--not us? What if their reptile-brain inspired economies requiring the destruction of every natural system on earth can't be slowed or reversed?"
---"I think I'm gonna go talk to her."
"What if it's already too late?"
---"Later."

"What if geneticists found a gene for paedophilia?"
---"They couldn't. .. They wouldn't."
"How about genes for bondage or sado-masochism?"
---"That's possible."
"What if there were like genes for everything not just for diseases, or hair color, math, gender and fashion sense?"
---"Like for dumb things? Whistling? Cup stacking? Backwards talking or walking?"
"I was thinking more like hobbies."
---"Bird watching? Origami? Bowling? Drink-mixing?"

"'There must be something worth saving in me'."
...

---"There must be something deserves killing in me."

"He's so popular hundreds of millions of people believe everything his speech-writers have him say."
---"She's so popular she doesn't speak unless she's reciting lines in a movie or when forced to do a press junket for those movies her marketing people find have limited appeal. ... A blogger calculated that for her last movie her pay averaged out to $300,000 per word of dialog."
"Was that the one where she pole-danced for the terrorist?"
---"Oh yeah."
"He's so popular people don't care about the lies he tells or the lies others tell for him. They can't stop believing in him."
---"She's so popular movie-goers still pay to see her even though her fanatic fans find it difficult to remember anything she's said from any of movies she's been in.--There's been studies done. ... There are rumors she's taken a vow of silence and doesn't speak a word until a sizable donation is first made to her church's Swiss bank account. ... Paparazzi are said to be stalking her 24/7 with microphones and have surrounded her various homes, the one's in Africa & Asia too, with the most sensitive voice-recognition listening devices from suppliers for the NSA."

"We moved the bed in the guest room, or as Bob calls it 'the junk room', from one wall to another and now the cat won't sleep on it. She's using Jakes bed now for her afternoon nap."
---"Superstitious cat."

"Everything I know about Black, Mexican or Asian-American cultures I learned from music videos, tv and the movies."
---"You know enough to say 'Asian-American'...and 'cultures'."
"We never go to the city. ... We vacation at resorts in South Carolina for the ocean and Colorado for the mountains or go to Vegas for long weekends. ... That Grand Canyon is something, have you ever seen it? Got right up to the edge and looked down into it and across to the otherside? ... You can't see the river, there might not even be a river down there."
---"Where would we be without travel?"

"They made peace with war."
---"So you, you're at war with war?" (smiles)
"It goes without saying there has to be killing and maiming."
---"You're outraged? Embarrassed? Inspired?"
"They're so accepting of death and destruction--at ease with the men and machines of war."
---"Don't worry their soldiers will never use those weapons on you and yours."
"Who's there to care if they do?"
---"Ummm."

(sing-song) "Somebody has to pay for the whores; somebody has to pay for the whores; somebody has to pay for the whores and he might as well be you."
---"But I don't use whores."
"All the better!"
...

---"I've never even had a whore."
"Are you sure you're not gay? ..Don't you have any rich friends? ..You've never been to Vegas? ..You've never worked for a political campaign? ..Volunteered for the neighborhood watch?"

"What can you do when the boys're so gay they'll do anything the Daddies say?"
---"What can you do with women so in need, or so in love they'll do anything the Daddies say?"
"But don't you think Daddies' boys do much more damage than Daddies' girls?"
---"To who each other? ... Aren't there ten-times more Daddies'girls?"
"Daddies love the girls for the sex things they do. Daddies' boys can do a thousand different things to prove their love."
---"What's love got to do with it?"
"OK call it power, ambition, god's will, the need to run with the pack.. kicks."
---"Kicks?"
"What can we do when the boys and girls are so needful they'll do anything the Daddies say?"
---"You don't know what you're talking about do you?"
"Trust the Daddies!?"
---"Nice try, it almost sounded like something."

"As I walked into the branch I noticed for the first time in my life that maple blossoms give off a faintly sweet, peppery, astringent scent."
---"That's no haiku".
"I can't think why I've never noticed that smell before. Maple trees are everywhere."
---"Oh you weren't reciting poetry?"
"It must be a short-term phenomena. Dependent upon humidity and the absence of wind?"
---"Maple musk must..."
"What?"
---"Nevermind."

"Look around. Most of the people here voted for Bush.. twice. They might not be happy with gas prices and his wars but he's their president. --He's still 'the President'. They would be more unhappy if someone not like him was their leader. ...Anyway in two years they get to choose again!"
---"Cha...So?"
"So what do they know about voting and leadership and loyalty and America that you don't? What's wrong with you?"
---"My Grandma talks alot about macular degeneration. There's this blurry spot in one of her eyes that's always with her but is most annoying when she reads because it blocks out some of the letters in the words. ... I think people contruct blinds--not only for their leaders--that block out certain parts of the picture. As long as they don't look too closely, they can still function without feeling impaired."

"We've been on alert since Friday morning. They tripled security and added walk-through X-ray machines and random searches. They say it's temporary. ... Corporate cut personnel in the Ammo Division by 25%."
---"We never get extra security at Kinko's. ... There was that night a junkie couple OD'd in the bathroom when it seemed like every cop and rent-a-cop from the tri-county area showed up to secure the scene with video cameras and camera phones."
"We're never again going to see sales like those three months after 9/11. That was something.---People went nuts buying guns and stockpiling ammo."
---"Never say never."
"From your mouth to God's ear."
---"Don't you mean bin Laden's ear?"

"Was there only one Trojan Horse?"
---"Do you mean figuratively or literally?"
"I don't know. I'm asking if the Greeks had built an actual wooden horse shouldn't there be drawings, mosaics or pottery designs of other versions, models and prototypes from around that time? It sounds like a fairly sophisticated device to be engineered without a precedent."
---"An Athenian Ass? Spartan Helmet? Persian Cat?"
"I guess the singularity of the Trojan Horse illustrates just how sparse the records are from those centuries. Maybe it wasn't a horse at all but a left-over siege device that the Trojans believed they were plundering from the battlefield?"
---"Burning libraries back then is like bombing power-grids nowadays. --Targets the American and Israeli armies are sure to destroy in the first hour of every peacekeeping mission."

...

"Is there any way of knowing if Helen of Troy was an real person?"
---"Kidnapping was the earliest form of courtship. Throughout human history there've been more kidnapped brides than engagements and bridal showers."
"Reminds me what Mormons do to marry their teenage wives."
---"Helen of Troy is an archetype present in some form or another in every culture and every age."
"Like the Easter Bunny, the Mother of God, Osama bin Laden and Elvis."
---"If there wasn't a Helen of Troy we'ld have to invent her."
"Debbie of Des Moines. Madison of Madison, Anne of Ann Arbor! (laughs)"
---"Remember the babies pulled from their incubators? The Davidian children saved from molestation by incineration at Waco?"
"What are you talking about?"

"Everyone in town knows where the bodies are."
---"Where the bodies are buried?"
"No stupid. The bods, the players."
---"Oh!"
"(laughs) Everybody over the age of ten knows where the bodies-in-play might be found-- which stores, parks, streets, gas stations, etc. And most know who the players are on any particular day."
---"Ruby Tuesday?"
"(recites) 'See how they run.'" ...At night it gets too crazy to be sure."
---"In a town this size there must be parties everyday."
"Moveable feasts.--More like moveable snacks to be honest.-- But who doesn't like junk food? People gobble that stuff up."

"He says he can't understand what women are saying. Men on the other hand are perfectly comprehensible."
"Is he losing his hearing?... Some kind of weird aphasia?
"Agnosia."
---"Gesundheit."
"He said it happened when he was about 12 years old. One day he just noticed that when women and girls talked they no longer made sense. In fact the sounds they made hardly resembled speech at all. Instead of words and sentences, all he's able to hear from women is this strange music--their songs--everything from the harshest dissonance to the sweetest melodies."
---"But no words, no facts, no information?"
"He hard a hard time in school after that but I've never seen him without at least one girlfriend or another."

"He's convinced that all can be revealed through observation."
--"All what?"
"Schools, schedules and books mostly confuse the process."
---"What about photographs, film, video...drawings?"
"No methods, no teachers."
---"Then how does it work? ... What's the point? --You're not buying any of it are you?"

"Sometimes I feel I'm psychically in touch with a number of people."
---'Well there's your parents, your sisters and brothers, and Naomi, Biff, Muffy, and Cheroot."
"No. I'm talking about feeling connected to people I've never met through a psychic thread, an intra-dimensional plasmatic cord."
---"Maybe your Dad fooled around on your Mom, or your Mom secretly gave away some of your other brothers and sisters? ... Maybe Naomi had kids you don't know about?"
"No. no. This feeling has nothing to do with blood relations. I'm almost certain there're people out there living in various countries all over the world with whom I move in tandem. People I may never meet, who's faces I may never see but with whom I share a connection I'll never have with others in the flesh. ... Have you seen any of William Blake's illustrations? It feels like that."
---"You've been putting a lot of late hours in? Falling asleep in front of your computer screen? ... What does Naomi think about these other people?"
"I haven't told her."
---"Good for you. Best to keep your psychic family in the psychic realm. ... Do you really want another coffee? Here have this scone and some butter I'm stuffed."

"To be able to treat women that poorly some woman must have loved him very much when he was growing up."
---"For sure his Dad's money doesn't cramp his style."
"He must've been the apple of his mother's eye."
---"Older sisters, favorite son."

"You're such a loser."
---"I didn't know it was a competition. I didn't know there were winners and losers."
"Then how did you lose her?"

"I had dinner with him once. He didn't like me. In those days what people thought of me wasn't so important. I remember him talking about guard dogs, german shepherds and rothweillers and thinking about it later having the feeling he was talking about me. As if he was familiar with the future, or as if he and his friends could turn people into whatever they needed and admired. ... About three months after that I saw him and a young boy playing hopscotch or something in the yard of one of the buildings he owned. I walked a lot in alleys back then. He wasn't happy to see me. He had nothing to say and all but ran to his car and drove away as his friend ran up the backstairs without saying a word. I never talked to him again."
---"Had you been barking?"
"Funny. --No it took me years to realize what he might've been up to."
---(laughs) "'Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus'."
"Recently I saw him on a local Sunday morning tv program. Being interviewed about some 'affordable' North Side condo or housing complex he and his corporation were developing with assistance from the city."
---"Hey you knew him when. --He's gotta be a millionaire now.--You can ask him for a job."
"I don't think I became the guard dog he predicted."
---"You got the face for it."
"I became a camel instead and walked away from him and his kind."
---"How's the desert been treating you then?"

"Where does she find those men?"
---"They find her."
"Clubs? Bars? The Gym? Church? The Mall?"
---"GPS."

"There're always a few vacant office 'suites' in every office building."
---"What's so sinister about that?"

"Listen up. I know you're convinced you've a unique perspective on the world and you're privy to perceptions and observations the rest of us busy making money and living can never in our haste and waste dream of having."
---"Hey! Privy?"
"I'm not putting you down. I'm not being cruel--you can be clever. I'm suggesting that instead of picturing everyone as happy to share your thoughts and observations---as being your standing-room-only audience-- you start seeing us as we really are. As people as much in our own worlds as you're in yours. ...Maybe as an exercise?"
---"Maybe the harder and more lifeless the materials in our environment--the steel, plastic, concrete and asphalt we come in contact with day-in-and-day-out--the more outlandish our day-dreams of smiling strangers and pliant crowds can become in response--or the opposite: armies of terrorists and criminal swarms?"
"That's what I'm talkin about. --Who cares? Who besides me would listen to that sentence, or for that matter everything you've said in the past months that led up to it?"
---"Isn't 'know your audience' the first rule of the theater? You're saying that's impossible."
"No I'm saying you're not a theater and we're not an audience. ...I'm wondering what would happen if you filtered what you see and prefaced your inner monologues with the understanding that first and foremost your concerns are not our concerns? ..What would happen if you began everything grounded in the premise that your concerns are no one's concerns?"
---"The world would be a less friendly place? --The world as I know it would no longer exist!"
"Precisely."
---"What would take its place?"
"Something else again. Maybe something closer to what the majority of us experience and in our own way've come to love."

"'I wanna be famous for falling in love'."