Requiem for the Wives

     1983  I saw a band called the Flaming Lips, at an American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma.  In the art school at the University of Oklahoma, I used to see a girl who was studying photography.  She had a unique voice.  It would be a few decades before I knew her name.  A few years later, she would move in with the band's guitar player.
     1985  I saw a band called Sonic Youth, at Meechum Auditorium in Norman, Oklahoma.  The guitarist Thurston Moore was married to the bassist Kim Gordon.  It would be a few decades before I understood that the bassist was also a working art critic.
     Both bands would move from their underground followings of the 1980s to major label contracts during in the 1990s.  Both bands are routinely revered as revolutionary and groundbreaking; not the least who do so being the bands who look up to them.  Both women are as responsible as anyone else for the success of their band.  I would see Sonic Youth again at Liberty Hall in Kansas City, and headlining Lollapalooza ten years after that.  I would see Flaming Lips guitarist Wayne Coyne, restringing a guitar on a second stage at an earlier Lollapalooza, and at a local in-store appearance in 2001.  These are a couple of bands which easily define "indescribable."  What I took away from Wayne's in-store gathering was an introduction to fans of his band...or perhaps his disciples.  He had clearly become some kind of leader with a spiritual kind of flavor.  He also appears to get a kick out of it, but the fans left me with an impression that they take their adoration quite seriously.  I remember thinking at the time, "I can tell that you are amused by these folks.  Just be careful.  Worshippers never take their idols lightly."
     Having left the store somewhat concerned, I believe that Mr. Coyne has done a bit of alright for himself.  He pursues a personal philosophy of "making your own fun," with which he takes no prisoners.  That which does not serve his cause, he allows to roll off his back.  Michelle has spent the past three decades documenting the band's history in the making, which so far fills three photograph publications.  As the band's stage performance became more sophisticated, she projected light shows while they played live, greeted fans, and who knows what else, alongside a dedicated crew of offstage volunteers and onstage costumed characters.  With the band, and with Wayne, she travelled the globe.  Not too shabby for a couple of kids from Oklahoma.  In 1991, a friend of my sisters gave me a VHS recording of "1991: The Year Punk Broke."  In this Sonic Youth documentary, Thurston reminisces about the band's rise to major labeldom.  This was some months or so before the band Nirvana (on tour with Youth in the doc) knocked Michael Jackson off the top position of the charts, and so the 1990s were born.  I loved the "indie" rock of the 90s, all forms, all movements.  When it went away, so did my interest in contemporary rock on the radio.  I had been collecting Lips and Youth releases, but I gave that up as well.  Puff the Magic Dragon had retreated to his cave.  In the first half of the 00s, I began listening to college AM radio instead.  I remember listening to one DJ, probably as young as I was in 1983, who spoke with perplexed frustration at his listeners' understanding of the Flaming Lips as an "independent" band.  I suppose that I am a disciple of music rather than message.  I did eventually see a documentary about the Flaming Lips, titled "Fearless Freaks".  At last, in the documentary, I recognized Michelle as the girl I had seen in art school.
     2013  A year before, I read online that Wayne and Michelle has separated after he hooked up with someone else.   This week, I read that she filed for divorce.  I immediately thought about their adventures together in this relationship, their house featured in a NYT profile.  I read a New Yorker article about Kim Gordon.  She mentioned borrowing her husband's phone and finding texts from someone he had become involved with.  She said that she eventually realized that Thurston couldn't leave their family, so she made the decision to do so.  The reporter revealed that she responded to the news of their breakup with tears in her eyes.  Thurston and Kim's enduring marriage had been a generation's example of a kind of triumph over the establishment's dysfunctions.  And Wayne and Michelle were given a cultural award from Oklahoma City.
     I saw posted online, Kim tweeted Michelle, "I am continuing to as as if everything is normal."  Michelle responded, "So am I."  It feels as if an era has come to an end.  Marriages do on occasion come to an untimely end, yes.  But these are some serious lineup changes.  Emerson wrote that most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.  I could see a Sonic Youth reunion.  And it would surprise me if the Flaming Lips didn't sally forth.  As long as Wayne continues to believe in his vision for the band.  And as long as his personal vision has followers...

Brother Love
November 2013

November 2013

     I'm on the bus home from work after another Saturday.  At one stop, a passenger gets on who looks just like the late Jerry Garcia, with an orange bandana and an orange T-shirt with a motorcycle on the front.  He has with him a collapsible shopping cart and he uses a cane.  I get on a connecting bus, along with a thin young girl.  I hear her make a call on her cell phone.  She is telling someone that she was on her way to work, when she discovered that the buses "are fucked up."  This weekend, the light rail system is closed due to repairs, all the way from downtown to the north.  She is telling someone that she decided not to go into work today.  I am thinking, if it were me, and it has been me more than once, I would find a way to work.  She hangs up, and a few minutes later, she makes another call.  She is now telling someone about her place of employment.  "I'm a stripper.  I could go in once a year if I wanted, and they would still keep me.  We have a girl who comes in and dances once every three months."  I hear her say that she likes the old guys the least, but enjoys telling the other guys how sexy they are, because this is how she makes more money.

     People were driving intellectual bulldozers and knocking  down rotting old ideas.  Richard John Neuhaus indentified  the collapse...of the secular enlightenment...  Paul Johnson identified...man's tragic falling in love with the state...  George Gilder wrote...of the humane nature of the free market.  Michael Novak noted the collapse of the...assumption that...education...can or should be value-free.  In another era various factors would have inhibited...a street person who waited until nightfall to roam the streets outside the EOB.  He mumbled and was obscene.  ...but this was the eighties, and the work of homeless activists had convinced the unstable that they had a wholesome...job to challenge society's complacency and agitate for the dispossessed.  In Washington in the eighties the insane were only used...cruelty in the name of a higher compassion, engineered by those lauded in the press...
     ...the president...was supposed to order...but...he didn't seem to know what to say.  He stared up at the menu and then at the young black girl at the counter...  He looked at her, she looked at him, he looked at the menu.  He didn't seem to have the faintest idea...  Someone whispered to him.  He seemed to be relieved to hear he could get a hamburger here.  - Noonan
     Activists with Occupy Denver have boycotted and picketed downtown businesses that supported the...Unauthorized Camping Ordinance...  ...restaurants rescinded their support of the ban after months of protest...one day before...an international boycott of...30...restaurant locations.  ...the number of homeless people in metro Denver has been stuck on a plateau of about 12,000...notably higher than it was five years ago.  "A whole lot of people are falling out of the new economic system."  ...more educated and skilled people fall into homelessness in recent years - "people who have never experienced poverty."  Part of the problem is a metro-wide dearth of affordable housing.  "The City and County of Denver have not improved services at all.  They think they're in their perfect world and the law is perfect."  - Washington Park Profile, 11/2013

     The next afternoon, I am on a different bus home, sitting in front of a couple of guys who are having a conversation.  "Fellowship, mentorship, sacrament of life."
     "What are the facts of this passage?  Where does it fit in scripture?  How does it fit in this passage?"
     "Exegesis."
     "What does the Holy Spirit call me to do."
     "Who, why, where, what is going on?  Personal reflection.  How does God speak?"
     "Just by reading, I believe in Jesus."
     "My wife and I started reading a book together.  It starts by naming the problem: that there is a lot of cultural Catholicism going on.  Do you have a personal relationship with Christ?  For the Catholic, for any Christian, the foundation has to be that relationship with Christ.  ...the cart before the horse...  Then the sacramental life is meaningless.  It's helpful as a Catholic that there is [sic] some areas of growth."
     "...in America.  We're so comfortable here.  I wrote a study on the letters of John in the book of James.  I came up with some names of different types of Christians.  ...people who go to church for the social aspect of it.  They serve on committees."  The next morning, I am on a bus for a short ride up the street.  The entire interior smells like carbon monoxide.  When I get off, I am halfway across the street before I no longer smell exhaust fumes.  When I get to the bus stop bench, a guy comes by and sits down, and asks, "'Scuse me, do you have a dollar in coins you can change me?"  He even offered to give me a dollar for a quarter.  I decline, and he is on his way, wherever his way is.  After work, I am on a bus home.   I have stumbles into some kind of archetypal example of the reason I do this blog, whatever this blog may be.  I sit down and immediately can not tell where the odor of an unwashed jock strap is coming from.  Just then, I notice that the guy sitting across from me is wearing a pair of dress pants with a tear the entire length of his fly on the left side.  I can see, inside, his leg and underwear.  It's the very first pair of dress pants with such a tear which I have ever seen, on or off a breathing person.  He can afford Eurospecs, but not a pair of pants.  I can only suppose that, in some kind of class context, he believes that is keeping it real.

     I looked at Darman.  He looked like...his toes have been stepped on by some fat fool.  The president leans slightly forward.  "You know...we broke up the three-generation family."  Darman can't stand it anymore...  "Well I think Mr. President that technology played a part...mobility, the enabling of the American family...to leave one part of the country..."  The president nods.  "It was the rise of the city too," he says, "...then the kids in the Midwest left..."  - Noonan

     I'm on a bus home after work with a goofy-looking guy in olive socks and some kind of Peter Max hoodie.  It's sounds as if he is on the phone with a young child, perhaps his.  "I'm talking to you, sweetie, not the bus driver.  You can't be by yourself, sweetie, I know that."  After some connections, I step off the last bus across the street from where I live.  At the gas station are parked a couple of police cars with bike racks.  Two officers are just now mounting bikes.  They head up the broken concrete of the boulevard's sidewalk.  I've seen bike patrols on the pedestrian mall downtown...during the summer months.  This is the first which I have seen outside of that time and place.  And on this boulevard, in their jackets and helmets?  The following morning at 5 am, a couple of streets from the same gas station, right where the officers would have passed on their bikes, an intersection is completely blocked off with police cars and road flares.  I see no cars which have been in any accident.  I make it to the train station around 5:30 am, where a tiny teen or woman in a plaid hoodie covered in peace signs is asking for change.
     The next day is my day off, which I employ in the service of a little shopping.  Across the street from where I live, sitting on a low concrete wall are five or six drunks of various ages.  One is standing and leading a discussion, which appears to be along the lines of what they plan to do this fine day.  The sun is out and it's beautiful.  I hop on a bus, and a teenaged couple get on.  The guy is telling the girl how a couple of his friends "were all mad that I went to jail."  They then dropped by his place "to beat the shit out of" him.  The girl laughs at this before they get off.  What did his 'friends' expect him to do, go on the lam?  I get off at a big outdoor mall/condo complex, and I stop into Target for a new pair of pants.  I swear to God, the cashier (who has a name tag which reads "new team member") has a necklace with a big silver unicorn pendant.  I stop into a huge health food grocery where such events as cooking demonstrations are held.  I have lunch at a pizza bar, where a customer is telling one of the chefs that their "sea salt is much better than" out on the east coast.  A dad comes by with his two small sons.  He interrogates the older son about a stain on his shirt.  On the way to the stop for the bus home, I find a small piece of paper, which reads, "Johanna, You have done such a great job in learning and understanding the stores Key Metrics and KPI.  You are a real asset to our store and we are so proud of how much you've grown over the past year.  We look forward to all you will bring to our team in the future.  Keep up the great work!!(and dancing)  -Your managers"  Back in my neighborhod, at the stop where I change buses, is another gaggle of drunks.  One is polishing off a tall can of beer, another is telling the rest 'fuck you', and a third runs up to the passenger window of a truck which has pulled out of a driveway.  The passenger gives him a styrofoam container, and from it he hands out hamburgers to the others.

     The monthly dinners...range from $69 to $95 and each feature different mountain cuisines (A Night in Bavaria...A Night in Spain...Foods of the Pacific Rim...)  "...definitely hit the Cloud Nine Alpine Bistro at Aspen Highlands; that's where we like to go when someone's rich parents are in town for a visit."  "...we have an inordinate amount of weed shops, which is kind of fun."  "Basically, our entire economy revolves around recreation, beers, wine, and spirits."  "...we're best known for our Dirty Hippie, a dark American wheat beer, and this year we're also canning our Hula Hippie."  "The locals still use the old run names - and we still call it Purgatory...so don't get confused if you hear people talking about 666 and stuff."  "...get yourself a pair of custom skis...  Each of us at the brewery got a pair last year with the...Brewing logo on them, and...have revolutionized my skiing."  ...try the five-course wine-paring dinner...at nearly 12,00 feet, it's billed as the highest-elevation restaurant in North America.  "...half-off deals at happy hour..."  "...barbecue and bourbon..."  Try the Face-Down Brown, a 2012 Great American Beer Festival gold-medalist and 2012 World Beer Cup gold cup winner.  "I have some other spots I love to hit, but that's not something I can disclose.  As a local, I'd probably be shot if I give up too many secrets."  - Westword the edge Winter Activity Guide 2013-2014

     It's the beginning of another week.  I am across the street from where I live, at the bus stop.  At 5 am, I think I hear a voice from the side I came across.  Someone is barely saying, "Hello...  Hello..."  At the deathburger, along with the usual smattering of regulars, there is a young couple asleep in a corner with their heads on a table.  On the table next to them: a backpack, a plastic bag with clothes, and a pair of bifocals.  Standing next to the Redbox is a guy looking at the texts on his phone and rocking back and forth.  The speakers are playing J. Giles' "Freeze Frame".  I begin dancing and singing along.I tell someone sweeping the floor that this is an old song.  She asks me in Spanish, "How old?"

     Pornography is highly addictive...  "I felt like I was in some sort of trance.  I would literally shake and develop pains in my head."  ...feelings of isolation...anxiety, depression, and anger.  ...suicidal tendencies.  ...imprint and alter the brain...  ...promiscuous, sexually violent, and emotionally and psychologically unstable.  - The Watchtower, 8/1/13
     What did she believe?  She...was...a well-dressed woman who followed the common wisdom of her class.  ...she disliked the "contras" because they were unattractive and dirty and probably raped people...  ...she was angry with her daughter Patti, she gave "The Washington Post" an interview that made my skin crawl.  ...she said...  My mother was kind and considerate and loyal...nothing like Patti...  ...asked about Patti's absence.  Ron more than makes up for that, she said.  Nancy will react to a problem by wanting to do away with the person who created it, or by simply trying to change whatever course or direction that caused her husband to be criticized."  ...(he was going from plant to plant for GE, shooting the breeze with the workers...he spent the years...with...the normal people of his country.)  ...people were afraid not to like him.  ...because his goodness was so famous...part of the air of the place...to dislike him was...admitting a serious inner flaw.  - Noonan

     Waiting for the bus across the street from where I live.  5 am   From the side I just came I think that I am listening to a barely audible voice saying, "Hello...  Hello..."  Hours later, I'm at a bus stop after work, back in my neighborhood around 8 pm.  The stop is across from a new Walgreens going up.  Joining the moon in the air, making circle after circle around the site with its searchlight beaming down, is a police helicopter.  On the bench is a guy in a jacket with colors of the city's football team.  He has a purple backpack with "I support breast cancer research" written in marker.  He's carrying a rake, with a couple feet of the handle held together with duct tape.  He says to me, "Smokey's lookin' for somebody.  I'm glad it's not me."
     It's my day off.  I am headed across the street.  Coming across the intersecting street is a bald guy with a cane and a bottle of iced tea.  He sees me and tells me that I don't look happy.  When I came back from across the street, I see the same guy siting on the curb next to the fence of my neighbor in the unit next door.  He says to me, "You don't look happy, buddy.  What's wrong?"  I tell him, "I'm just fine."  When I get inside, I look out my back window.  I see him get up and go on his way.
     The next day, I'm on a bus home after work.  Sitting in front of me is a young guy in a blue bandanna around his head.  He recognizes a girl he knows.  They begin discussing which drugs that social services look down on more than others.  The guy gets off, and another girl gets on.  She has attractive dark hair.  She also recognizes a guy, sitting behind me, tells him that she lost her phone.  He tells her about his new bike, that he wants to find the bike trails.  She tells him that she couldn't sleep because she has "been thinking too much" about something which doesn't really matter."  He tells her that she has been hanging out downtown, doing drywall work, mentions something about everything being so commercial.  He has a friend with a one-bedroom studio rental.  He himself is never home because he works all the time.  He tells her that he's added up all the "bills and shit," and decided that it's impossible to live in minimum wage, costing at least $2,500 per month to live.  It sounds as if he is going to try to sneak a ride on the train without fare, only to the next stop.  He tells her that they will go out for ice cream when he gets a chance.  He gets off, and at the next stop, so does a white-haired woman in a fur leopard-print coat, a T-shirt with the face of Marilyn Monroe, and with a walker.
     The morning after is another Saturday.  5 am  At a bus stop just up the street, I get off in front of a shelter with a guy curled up asleep on the ground inside.  I don't see a winter coat on him.  When I get across the street, I hear someone coughing at that stop some minutes later. Perhaps he is awake.  On a bus home after work, I am sitting behind two women who are friends.  One considers herself a conservative Christian.  The other one tells her that she is bisexual.

     Over the past year, some of our favorite bars have been the focus of facelifts...mere shadows of their former skanky selves...and certainly no longer qualify as dives.  ...while it's hard not to appreciate the new bathrooms, the place now seems flush with success.  ...an...upscale atmosphere...but not the dive we loved.  Dive bars have been ruined by hipsters.  According to the "New York Times" this weekend...  "Too much of urban life revolves around never feeling less than fully at ease.  The logical extension is to 'curate' our urban spaces like style blogs or Pinterest boards representing a single, self-satisfied and extremely sheltered expression of middle- and upper-middle-class sensibility."...  Census Bureau statistics showed that Denver was the top gainer of young adults, a fact that city boosters keep touting.  - Westword, 11/14-20/13
     ...lesbian and gay bars created our modern-day culture...  The lesbian and gay bars are the first place we go...in a new city, to narrow down our niche, to...introduce straight aquaintances to...our lives.  ...our sub-scenes...our gayborhoods...came from our bars...  That place where...we...hang out with people who "get" us...  LGBT bar owners and managers have sometimes been looked to as political leaders...  As a teenager...we...met...to rally the group and introduce our straight female friends to our world...  That was 2003, and ten years later...the throngs...far more representative and diverse than my own generation's - have grown exponentially.  It's a good thing when communities have special places...where...influence is not based on being politically inclined.
     ...now the most unabashed same-sex couples can hold hands walking...  "Our community has...changed the way gay bars do business."  ...including summer pool parties, new staff and a new monthly Sunday night party...a male revue show...  ...Scruff and Growlr, mobile apps that connect his customer base when they're not in the Uptown establishment.  ...undergoing a remodel.  ...to...keep true to his brand while expanding his base - a thin line to walk.  "Muscular, classy.  Industrial, but not cold."  ...the recently reformed Colorado GLBT Tavern association...  "Denver is growing and changing faster than the city can handle.  ...our role is going to shift."  "The atmosphere in Denver is more of a production,"...comparing the metropolitan scene to that of his rural college town.  "I feel more judged in Denver.  ...he's seeing success in  what he calls an upscale neighborhood bar.  ...destinations rather than haunts.  "The gay bars (of the past) ran their course."  ...in almost every instance an LGBT bar has closed, it's been replaced by straight establishments.  "We have to turn this place into Disneyland every night."  - Out Front, 11/6 - 11/20/13

     After being called in to work on my day off,  am on a bus home.  Instead of overhearing the usual conversation about prison, I am listening to a couple of women discussing a grandmother's recipe.  As I begin falling asleep, some kids get on.   I hear one tell another, "There was a fire at school."  A grizzled guy sitting up front in a green plaid shirt and prescription sunglasses is sucking a toothpick.  Behind me, I hear Spanish.  On the local evening news, I see a TV reporter standing in front of the "medical marijuana" dispensary across the street from where I catch a bus most mornings.  The report says that this and some other such establishments have been raided.  I hear it secondhand that the place I stare at most mornings, before the sun comes up, is the "main' culprit; and that the charges are conspiring either with gangs or with drug cartels.  World class city indeed.
     A Colombian national was arrested last week in a Cherry Hills Village home for illegal gun possession in connection to a federal raid in metro area medical-marijuana businesses.  DEA agents in partnership with local law enforcement...executed...16 search warrants in the case.  ...in connection to VIP Wellness...  - The Villager, 11/26/2013
     There's a casualness...that makes throwing a party as easy as string lights, roses from the garden, and farmers' market peaches...  ...we peek inside a perfectly appointed Cherry Hills home...  Some homes are so perfect...every co-ordinating throw pillow...that it looks as if the design fairy...waved her magic wand.  - 5280 Home, Summer 2013
     The following day is my actual day off.   I grab a bus down the street, for lunch to go at a place next to a gas station and across the street from a bus stop.  As I head toward the lunch place, a drunk who is regular to this boulevard sits on the curb of the gas station, next to a woman.  He lifts his head and says to he, "Hey bro...hey bro..."  By the entrance is a group of other regular drunks.  I have read about this gas station on my neighborhood's social networking site, about the manager working with police to prevent panhandling.  It hasn't eliminated it, and I can see how customers may feel intimidated.  It makes me wonder why drunks pick this place to hang out.  With lunch in hand, I'm off to the post office.  When I get back to this corner to catch a bus back up the street, most everyone is still where they are.  At the bus stop across the street is someone yelling across to someone else at the gas station.  The guy at the stop gets up and walks a few steps before throwing his pack on the ground.  He sits back down, gets up and gets his pack and leaves.  I get to the bus stop, where a guy in a wheelchair comes up to me and says, "You know Sheila, don't you?  You know Sheila?"  I get on the bus when it comes, and I head up the street to the drug store to pick up some pictures and Christmas cards.  Outside of the entrance are sitting yet more drunks.  I watch one of them inside, looking around with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth.  He leaves without purchasing anything.
     It's the end of the week, and after work I am on a bus home which I am usually not on.  This afternoon, I am headed for a magic outdoor mall and condo complex, to pick a few things which are not available at the supermarket next to the trailer park.  I wonder what the trailer park residents, in their sports team gear and foot-long beards, would do in this other neighborhood?  I wonder if the two came into contact, like matter and anti-matter, would the combination explode?  On this bus with me this afternoon is the local drunk I saw on the curb ("Hey bro...  Hey bro...") a few days ago.  He gets off on the boulevard which we share.  He has a wooden cane which is worn at the handle.  When I arrive at the mall, I stop into a liquor store.  Instead of 'Hey bro', the clerk says, "How are you, fine sir?"  Two neighborhoods separated by just a couple of city blocks; two separate dramas running concurrently.  I run into a health food supermarket next door.  In a hot food buffet section at one end, in front of a pizza bar, is a string quartet playing traditional Christmas tunes.  The customers at the bar are turned around on their stools, facing the musicians.  They applaud at the end of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem'.  I am reminded of the Titanic.  Outside are streets lined with leafless tress wound with Christmas lights; a cardboard cutout, on a metal stake, of a couple of women doing yoga.  It's posted in a small dirt lot.  The following day, I will see the 'Hey, bro' guy yet again, on the bus I take to grocery shopping.
     It's the Monday before Thanksgiving.  5 am.  On the bus bench across the street from where I live, where drunks will hold court, is a Boy Scout T-shirt.  At the deathburger up the street is a guy I've never seen, in a seat with his head on a table.  On the way from there to the bus stop, I pass a guy with a foot-long beard in  camouflaged pants and a leather coat.  Drunk dynasty?  A couple of mornings later, the T-shirt is gone from te bench.  In the shelter is someone else from central casting.  He has shoulder-length hair and a small duffel bag.  He asks me if the bus is still running.  (?)  He then wants to know if I have a cigarette.  I tell him that I don't smoke.  He finds a butt, and then asks me if I have a lighter.  I remind him that I don't smoke.  He then begins speaking gibberish.
     The day after Thanksgiving.  I am on a bus to work a late shift.  Up front is a guy in a 1940s hat and with a cigar in his mouth.  We both get off at the train station and head over to the platform, where he makes a series of ninety degree turns in order to get out of the breeze and light his cigar.  When I get downtown, my favorite breakfast and lunch place is closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Instead, I land at Chillis.  It's a groovy family crowd.  My server calls me "bro."  He wants to know if fries are okay with my burger.  I say sure.  He says "sweet.  Back with that in a few, bro."  Seated in front of me is an elderly African-American woman sipping orange soda out of a plastic beer mug.  She doesn't see her server come up behind her.  She stops just to ask, "So what have you been up to today ma'am?"  She clearly was not expecting this greeting.  My own server comes back to ask, "You want some more diet soda, bro?"
     Meanwhile, the following morning is another Saturday at 5 am.  At the deathburger I am listening to a regular guy with a foot-long beard and deep red skin.  "$!.39 for a can of beer.  Frank's not there anymore."  Eleven and a half hours later, I am right back at this very same spot after work.  Among this neighborhood's family crowd is a pair of middle-aged women sitting at a corner table.  They could be twins, if not sisters.  One has makeup on and has a cute face.  The other appears as if perhaps a car ran over the part of her face between her nose and her lower jaw.  They both act as if they are some kind of burnouts.  The first one goes to her car, leaving the other at the table.  Another pair comes in, this one male.  One has a T-shirt, with "SEAL" on the back.  The other is older, has bloodshot eyes, and also sounds as if he is a burnout.  He says to the tounger one, "You know how mad I was when I first got out of jail?"  When I look back at the remaining sister, I notice that she has a laptop plugged into an outlet, which she unplugs and takes with her as she goes outside.  I notice another couple with their laptop plugged in.

     mushrooms like Frequent positive feedback  be very VERY tolerant of your mushrooms  ...give them free condoms...  EVERYONE GETS A TROPHY!  MUSHROOMS DO NOT LIKE CONFLICT...  It's easy to be a mushroom in today's culture with government, big business and special-interest groups trying to force-feed you their agendas.  The abortion industry is getting a lot of help from pop culture and mainstream media...  ...forced abortions and sterilizations, mandatory birth control, and follow-up healthcare...  The time has come to eliminate...population control itself.  ...the concept of "population control" is not only outdated, but actually contributes to conflict in the world...  - human life alliance
     "...clergy end up performing the predominant amount of...mental-health care...in this country.  ...a lot of people naively go into the clergy...  And they're also all of a sudden the CEO of a company...and most of them have little or no training on how to plan a budget.  It's...an isolating facade that both you and your family have to put on."  He'd been raised...with exciting rock music, an extension of the Jesus movement of the 1970s, and mentored by pastors who could inspire large groups of people with the common goal of loving one another.  Over the last decade, the "new atheism" movement has been gaining an incredible amount of traction.  ...has become a loud voice at the 21st American dinner table.  "A lot of people say that atheists are the new gays," says...star of the one-woman show "Jesus Loves You (But Hates Me)"  - Westword, 11/28 - 12/4/2013