Overheard Starbuck

"He had motive and opportunity."
---"And you have a tv set on which you watch cop shows. Seriously--who the hell talks like that?"

"I don't mind being stupid once in awhile."
---"Once in awhile?"
"I don't try to put anyone on anymore. I like being off-putting."
---"Off-putting sounds like an olympic event."
"In my ill-fitting clothes I've grown into the useless man that women always knew me to be."
---"Grown?"
"From a half-mile away they see me for the waste of meat I am. As I get more comfortable with myself, their utilitarian hallucinations flare and they become more restive and fearful."
---"It's a restive world afterall."
"I don't like to watch them as they shudder and turn away but that's refreshing compared to the years of imagining that somewhere in one of their exquisite bodies my life's mate may be waiting."
---"The dream is over."
"Let's drink a toast for all the girls and women who never took time to make time with me."
---"Bitter, no? --A little bit maybe? --Just a little?"
"I see paddocks and pens. Men in thick rubber boots carrying buckets of feed through the mud, oblivious to the noise, comments and criticism."
---"Your lady-love waits for you, quickly find her and tell her about these sights you've seen. These things you know in your heart. There's still time to make a world together."
"You promised you wouldn't laugh."
---"How might $10,000 more disposable income a year spruce up that old feed lot."

"She was sexy. She was beautiful. She was loving and she was sweet. But after living together for a few weeks he realized that on the existential spectrum that ran from imaginary to reality her experiences would always skew on the imaginary end. Even when making love she was more will'o'the wisp then flesh on flesh, soul-to-soul. It wasn't anybody's fault but they were doomed."
---"Dude of all the things that can wreck an intimate relationship who in their right mind considers let alone cares about reality? ---Poor sick fuck."

"Everybody knows who has the money. Everybody knows what they'll have to do. ---That is everybody except for you."
---"Does everybody know what it turns them into?"
"Nothing they value is lost....it won't turn them into you."

"Have you seen on late-night tv the 'Inspiratonal Bible Reading Hour?'"
---"I'm not entertained by preachers."
"A man or a woman dressed as a minister stands at a podium in front of a blue screen projection of a world famous cathedral, church or nature scene and reads as if in front of a congregation randomly strung together passages of a few sentences or paragraphs long from the bible. He or she doesn't stop reading, or make any comments, remarks or explanations, but keeps up a steady measured 'preacherly' cadence. The background never varies during the hour but changes from show to show. The use of the three studio cameras is a random as the words of god that find themselves at any particular moment falling from the readers lips to our ears."
---"Every minute of every hour of every day the words of god announce the way to eternal salvation ."
"God needs shills?"

"I was always in awe of women; scorned by men."
---"Your scornful compatriots were in awe of women too."
"No one was as drunk on beauty as I was."
---"When they weren't chasing tail, they were working for the cash to chase tail and support their families according to the means to which they were accustomed . What were you doing when everybody was busy getting dizzy?"
"I couldn't say but I know it wasn't that."
---"Do you understand how out-of-it-you were? Do you see how true believers might view what you weren't doing as threatening, crazy or criminal? They're working so hard to get them a little sumptin' something, and you...and you don't care. Don't even notice them falling over themselves, pants and panties around their ankles, tongues lolling, sweat beading from their faces.. ..How have you stayed out of jail? Stayed alive?"

"There's nothing like watching one's reflection fade in the stare of a sadist.--seeing their anticipation of mastery melt into the certainty of boredom. Sometimes they'll shed a tear. You can get a glimpse of the synthetic organs and organizations which control their controls. New plastic-alloys are replacing the gems and the crome. New open, hipper bureaurats replacing the men in grey and the women in black and blue. The ice- cold sadness is the same."
---"Isn't it dangerous to look in their eyes?"

"I read in Demographics Weekly the next presidential election may be decided by the self-hating gay vote. Some experts say radical Christian fundamentalism--maybe all religious fundamentalism-- couldn't exist without closeted gays."
---Gay-bashing as self-flagellating penance? Gay-bashing as self-flagellating penance turned into a world-over political movement?--You're blaming the victims: people who's identity and daily existence is threatened by god-damned homo-phobes."
"Hello? Hello? You've lost me there Rosa. The operative terms here are 'self-hating, closeted, christian gays'. I was wondering what if there were more gay homo-phobes then straight? What might such a closeted closet organization be up to? But I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm enjoying this fantasy a little too much. I don't want to add to any groups media constructed and filtered pain."
---"Bastard. Those crazy ideas of yours might be a hate crime."

"For most people dying is a complete surprise: they have little time to realize what's happening to them?"
---"Is it; do they?"
"I'm asking, I'm asking."
---"If so it's a small mercy for a lucky few."
"Could it then follow that life is also a surprise. That most people have little time to realize how life happens to them? ...Are people surprised by life? Stopped in their tracks by 'uh-oh', 'oh shit' or 'gee whiz' moments?"
---"This is you trying to be profound --OK so then what? Are some experiences and insights more valuable then others?-- I've seen you barf on keyboards and copy machines during office parties: some ideas are best left to the publish or perish professionals. --Look your shoes untied."

"About a hundred years ago my great-grandfather snuck into this country to work and live illegally. He met my great-grandmother got married and stayed. Does that mean me and my family could be arrested and deported?"
---"Are you Mexican?"

"There's a little ball of fear and hate inside her that gives her life all the bounce it'll ever need."
---"What does it sound like?"
"It's silent but its menacing glow penetrates brick and concrete and alarms minorities for miles around. People swear it can spoil food and wither houseplants in a matter of minutes. Birds, dogs, cats and other small mammals hide. Children under three years of age spontaneously burst into tears. "

"These days real men swagger a little when they hear the word 'torture'."
---"Is it because they think they could take it just enough to prove they're as tough as the next guy?"
"No, real men never put themselves in the place of the victim, detainee, minority, suspect, woman, etc.. It's bad mojo. It can give you the 'yips'."
---"Is it because these men think they have what it takes to be torturers themselves? To use on men and woman detainees whatever violence might prove necessary to get the information that'll save the homestead--long before the 24-hours is up?"
"Real men don't role play that much. I think most of today's men see torture as another tool, another powerful weapon in our military's arsenal. Men like tools; being the first in the neighborhood with latest. If the terrorists are fighting a new kind of war, it goes without saying our security forces need new weapons to fight them with. And we got them, before all the other so-called world powers. The President, the Courts, Congress, the Pentagon and our Christian conscience agree that torture is an effective weapon against this enemy."
---"Are you suggesting if terrorism became less of an threat--by what means, I couldn't guess--then torture as an American institution, within its venerable institutions, could disappear altogether, like a bad dream?"
"Hell no. Torture's gonna be with us a long time. Long after Bin Laden's mummified body is torn apart by desert jackels and long after AlQaeda turns into just another third world street gang and it leaders' books wind up on the Times Best Sellers list. Torture American-style will be exported to every country in the world...wait until the research from the past thirty years on the electromagnetic altering of the human brain begins to leak from the university labs."
---"And we'll see for the first time who the enemy really is."
"That doesn't sound right."
---"Well, lots of things will never sound right to lots of people ever again."
"Huh?"
---"I'm sorry I think I started channeling Bette Davis trying to recite a T.S .Eliot poem."
"Does that happen alot"?

"There're no events, no catastrophes anywhere in the world, that I won't sooner than later make about me and my problems."
---"There're few events, few tragedies anywhere in the world, I can't ignore."
"'To Life!'"
---"'To life!'"

"Defer to the experts already."

"I hadn't thought about her for years until I saw a woman behind the counter at Kinkos with long brown hair like she wore making color copies."
---"The one that got away."
"After dinner that evening I sat on my bed and cried."
---"Because of what you've lost? Because of what you did to make her go; what she did to make you go?"
"Because of what I've become."
---"You're turning into a mauldin old man."
"I hadn't cried for a long time. It felt good to cry real salt tears."
---"I don't need to hear this. You're only a few years older then me."
"But you have Mindy, the kids and your half-wolf, half-huskies to fill your alone time."
---"I've always been more of a 'doer' than a 'dreamer'."

"It's time to slay the dragon."
---"Don't you mean drain the lizard?"
"I'm talking about the alone time I spend reflecting on the forces and powers that brought me to this place. It's d.i.y. meditation."
---"Om mani padme paddywack give-a-dog-a bone."
"Lately I've been thinking by what tortuous metamorphosis night-blossoms become day- lilies.--That is if they do.-- How is it that soccer Moms blossom among gangsters and psychopaths: how does their indifference create a garden? Do gangsters follow orders and keep their distance from the right people while given carte blanche to harvest those who's committment to growth's fallen below the latest quotas?"
---"And for knowing when to speak out and when to turn away soccer Moms get bone marrow, blood, meat and cereals?"
"Life."
---"'Count Chocula'"
"On bad days my dragon finds me and ideas about flowers, blood, indifference and everything conceivable are trampled and singed in an instant."
---"Choke the chicken?"

"Among the guards that came for him, making him in his darkened cell put on the dark goggles by himself, then in silence strapping him to the gurney, he noticed a pair of hands that were sometimes gentler then the others. He thought of his wife and daughters and often wept but not always because of what separated him from his family or from what the jailers' interrogations did to his flesh and bones. He wept because they couldn't make him forget what made him a man."

"I've nothing against institutions: Boys Town, Masons, Act-up, SCLC, Mormons and that ilk."
---"One of my uncles was an Ilk."
"It's the institutions within these institutions that I see as a threat to freedom and democracy."
---"'It's the institutions within the institutions within these institutions, I worry about."
"Imagine if every mall cops--every security agency's-- primary allegiance is not to the public but to a nation-wide organization which dutifully does its job while also providing man-power and security for huge criminal enterprises using extortion, blackmail and a host of dirty tricks on groups and individuals secretly judged as too political, too poor and attractive, too effective, or too annoying? Thanks to Homeland Security grants and technological cloning and standardization, private and government security forces have created and control a hydra of real-time near constant surveillance. The security apparachiks within these organizations have gone way beyond the prevention of crimes against consumer items and private property. People are now property..."
---"Ok, ok. Very interesting; I've heard enough. I'm getting a headache. ...How about those Cubs--the bums?"

"Did you ever wonder who's the world's richest heroin addict?"
---"How about the world's richest religious leader?"
"Besides the Pope?"
---"Who's today's world's richest man or woman with full-blown HIV-AIDs?"
"The world's richest grocery store clerk?"
---"The world's richest paraplegic or quadraplegic?"
"The world's richest adopted heir."
---"Over or under 21 years of age?"
"The world's richest dyslexic?"
---"The world's richest transexual?"
"The world's richest paedophile?"
---"The world's richest professional gambler?"
"The world's richest woman or man who's wealth comes from divorce settlements or other civil litigation?"
---"The world's richest convict who's not a drug dealer, human trafficker or head of state?"
"The world's richest pet?"
---"The world's richest lecturing and publishing professor?"
"The world's richest single mom without servants or nannies?"
---"The world's richest choir member?"
"The world's richest parole officer?"
---"The world's richest John Lennon impersonator?"
"The world's richest murderer?"
---"Who's not a general or a head of state?"
"Or religious leader."
---"The world's richest working nurse?"

"People who can read generally agree--maybe only giving lip-service to a mostly forgotten biology class--that the the world 's facing an overpopulation crises."
---"We're running out of natural resources! We're using up all the oil!"
"So when an infant dies or a fetus is aborted, or for that matter when any of us die, who or what loses, where's the tragedy?"
--- "Your babies' lives may mean nothing to you, but our babies are special. Why don't you get a vasectomy if you feel that way?"
"As special as the brown, black or yellow babies in those parts of the world where they haven't the resources to mass produce and distribute condoms, and keep the shit out of the drinking water, or the sense to see the connection between over population disease and hunger?"
---"Are you saying anti-abortionists are racists?"
"I wouldn't know. I'm trying to understand the new laws protecting fetuses along with the constant flood of media reports on the evils of planned parenthood and teen birth control ."
---"Baby killer."
"Don't you see the contradition? Our sentimental feelings about fetuses don't reflect the realities of overpopulation one little bit."
---"I see one stone cold-hearted bastard. Die already and make more room for me and mine."
"Now that makes sense."

"Sooner or later everyone thinks their parents are crazy. In time most of us get over ourselves..and them."
---"How many realize before they've kids of their own that they were raised by wild animals?"
"According to daily crime reports not nearly enough."
---"How many of us eventually build perfect cages for or make house pets of the ghosts of those beasts?"
"How many people live in trees?"

"The women members of her tribe undergo scarification rituals on their faces and lips and have plastic discs inserted under their breasts. The men must be willing to give up the traditional jobs which they've been trained since boyhood to perform. Most men now work and engage in activities once solely the concerns of women."
---"While the made-over women do 'men's work'?"
"The women's jobs are less restrictive, since networking is now a marketable skill. Women are the pr people, the lobbyists and the representatives for the tribe. Men are cloistered in offices, laboratories and boiler rooms while women meet and greet, lunch and smooze actual people, not data from computer screens. Income is confiscated and redistributed through the tribal councils, controlled by women, and because of the absence of toys, cigars, and strippers some of men view their tailor-made suits as little more than business-men's burkkas."
---"And the women respond to demands by these men for more wages and benefits by withholding sex?"
"The Councils are calling their response to this year's labor demands, 'staying the course of freedom under the threat of annihilation'."