I have felt this before when I have published stories about alternative lifestyles. Or about sexuality. I am afraid some readers may feel squeamish...when confronted with people...quite unlike them... And Burning Man has...some people who are into drugs, nudity and sex.
...it's clear that art patrons among Silicon Valley's aristocracy have contributed adequate funding to many of the projects. Black Rock Radio broadcasts an enervating program of monotonous loud music and inane interviews. I wanted to talk about recovering my wits. ...I went off alone and found the Shaman Dome, and waited to talk to a practitioner. I waited with...souls for a "purification" rite... My assigned shaman, in shorts, Hawaiian shirt and organic jewelry, looked and spoke like a psychotherapist from a California beach community. After my visit to the Shaman, Lucky and I pedalled out to the Temple of Whollyness. I may have become too parental - Dina told Lucky that her friends wouldn't allow us back to her camp, ever again. Flocon shouted..."I left my bag behind!"...and sprinted back... With no lights on his bike. No water. In the middle of the desert at night. - Nexus, January/February 2014
...the 5,000-volume library he's amasses on topics such as Buddhism, astrology and scripture,...paintings, sculptures and crystals he's collected on his world travels. ...teaching him to seeks out signs of order in the disorder all around him. ...found the final pieces of a pattern he'd been struggling to understand from a young age...from the existential crisis...watching the trauma of the 1960s...countered by...yogis with supernatural powers. Between the 1960s and 1980s, Western yoga practitioners worked hard to downplay the spiritual aspects...that led to xenophobic backlashes in the past. This was a true internet-based scandal,...allegations, renunciations and atonements were posted online...with much of it flavored by...dharma, chakras and other colorful examples of yoga-speak. For some gurus, it seems, yoga's tantric undertones - the lure of spandex-clad, endorphin-fueled bodies...has led to trouble. - Westword, 1/9-15/2014
After work, I get on a bus some twenty blocks north of where I live. The bus driver lets the passengers know that the police have blocked off nine blocks of the boulevard. A day or two later, I am off work early on a Saturday; at a deathburger for a late lunch. In the lobby, all the sudden I hear somebody loud, a local tweaker. From what I can make out, he has no money because some kind of bill came due or some expense. He is telling the manager behind the counter that it's "all gone, all gone." He tells the manager that he has four sleeping bags. I look out the window and there they are in a shopping cart. He then addresses a customer in line by name, before the guy gives him some coins. He thanks the guy, telling him that he is "an officer and a gentleman," and that he deserves "the Congressional medal of Honor, and a 21 gun salute" before he leaves (presumably to do some panhandling) before coming back in to purchase a coffee.
"Blank miles from here is the Alamo, where brave heroes blank... ...communism must be expunged from the clean, free lands of the Americas." It's odd to see that rhetoric now...my conviction...that the problem of Central America...was the place where communists would...advance...creating a wave of foot people... - Noonan
...the Westwood neighborhood was...selected by the Colorado Health Foundation to participate in Healthy Places: Designing a Healthy Colorado.
The initiative aims to reduce obesity...promotes an active lifestyle. ...a group of national experts from the Urban Land institute...touring and interviewing over 100 neighborhoods stakeholders... Westwood is now eligible to receive $1.000.000 to implement recommendations...
"I'd like to see something done before I die." ...longtime Westwood resident...waited nearly 6 decades to have the alley behind her home paved. - An update from the Office of Councilman Paul D. Lopez, Winter 2013
It's the beginning of a new week. The nation is under some kind of "North Pole drift," and frigid air and snow are blowing across the nation. We don't have it as bad. Rather than below zero degrees F, this morning is 3. I am at the bus stop across the street from where I live. From the direction of some apartments which appear to be some kind of halfway house, I hear someone slowly shuffling down the sidewalk in the god-awful frigid air. It's so cold you can taste it. I see a guy in an insulated jumpsuit with a hood. He is wearing his scarf in a way which I have never seen. It's rolled into a thin band and tied around his head in a way which only covers his nose. He has a plastic bag with something square and flat in it, such as a styrofoam takeout box. I watch as he puts it down to get inside it.
I get up the street, but I watch my bus pass me by. This one has arrived early. I catch the next one, which I never have a chance to take, and on which is a middle-aged guy with long curly hair under a British cap. He is looking at the newspaper and talking non-stop to the woman next to him about the city's basketball team, about his car which is smoking. "We paid over a thousand..." I wonder why he is balancing the paper on his lap and turning the pages with one hand, until I notice that his left arm is either missing or inside his coat. Another woman gets on, who appears to know him. He immediately asks her, "Did you go to jail?" (?) She replies, "Not until February." Okay... He mentions that his "daughter is a brat."
There was...I believe, a bit of ye olde class antagonism at work... These fundamentalists and...their I VISITED HERITAGE VILLAGE T-shirts. To be on their side was to play...in "Inherit the Wind"...the hero of the movie...Spencer Tracy. The Heritage Foundation's Gary Bauer saw an America in which the habit of religion...tends to be a civilizing force... ...he saw...the America we've always been until things went crazy, an America of decent, understanding people who'd been stunned and disoriented by the Carrie Nations and "their" crazed attitude. - Noonan
...now an Occupy Denver coalition of protesters is going after...the store's...lack of position on...Denver's...ban on urban camping... ...with signs and bullhorns... "They paid and continue to pay membership dues to the Downtown Denver Partnership, which fees were used to lobby for the Ban..."
...his...Consulting firm is in high demand around the country...helping would-be MMJ dispensaries ...and advising politicians... The night before sharing a dab of hash with us, he was dining with the governor of Illinois... Grabbing a small capsule...with...cannabinoids... "I take these before I do any kind of public speaking, because I get nervous..." ...later dressing up in a chicken suit to harass "Chickenlooper" for then-mayor John Hlckenlooper's refusal to debate marijuana policy. - Westword, 1/2-8/2014
Members of the surrounding neighborhood...can...cross examine witnesses...of... Mandatory public hearings concerning...a retail marijuana license... ...can request to have the public hearing scheduled on or after 5 pm, allowing for working families to participate in the process. "We refues to become a neighborhood of liquor stores, payday lenders and pot shops." - Councilman Paul Lopez - An update from the Office of Councilman Paul D. Lopez, Winter 2013
...my concern is that southwest NOT become a haven for more marijuana stores considering the number of liquor stores we already have. My wish is for...a diverse commercial community that will lift up our neighborhoods... - Nextdoor Westwood
...asked pot smokers whether they could identify the moment of transference from "straight" to "stoned" (they couldn't)...so much depended on setting, mood, and the user's own psychic structure. ...he tells me as the late afternoon sun filters through a curtain with a pattern of serene seated Buddhas. If you learn the salient provisions of the Treaty of Ghent while smoking marijuana, you'll forget them...unless you show up for the test similarly stoned. "I can envision a expanded psychology of the future in which we give a person a batch of tests and tell him , 'Kundalina yoga would be good for your type of personality, but never do zazen; your type gets psychotic half the time.' But our culture is not ready for it. - Davies
"The populists were...not poor but...often lower middle-class or working class...with just enough money to stick their heads up, look around, and feel certain things. They...always though someone or something was keeping them from getting ahead..." "...it's almost in the gene pool by now, part of the national genetic makeup." He nods. - Noonan
One way of looking at some religious aphorisms is as a system of progressive psychological noise reduction. Purity, poverty, contemplation, and so on... are methods of removing sensory distractions which eventually culminates in "samadhi", a transcendental state in which the normal boundaries between the self and others disappear. It may not be so dissimilar to what people on marijuana experience when...staring at the wallpaper for twenty minutes. - Davies
It's the middle of the week. I am up the street at my usual bus stop at 5 am. I hear sirens. A police car and an ambulance turn the corner. For the fifth time in the past couple of weeks, the same guy with the pickup truck and plow shows up at the bus stop. Today he is...clearing the remaining snow of the curb. Really? Cleaning snow off the curb? This is the first time in five years of waiting at this stop when I've seen this. Is this guy really under contract to the transit system, or some kind of agent? On the bus, a middle-aged guy sits down next to me. He's in a camouflaged poncho and leather, fingerless gloves. On a connecting bus is another guy. He has with him in the seat a Jack Daniels bar mirror. The following morning, a handful of people pass before me. While at my usual stop, a little guy who is bundled up shuffles down the sidewalk before he stops to check his fly. Across the street a guy is slowly strolling along in his hoodie, bottoming up his coffee mug. Someone comes onto the bus, a cigarette butt between two fingers.
It's almost the end of the week now. I am working a late shift in a predominantly Caucasian upscale neighborhood, stopping into a deathburger for lunch. I am watching something which goes by the name of Lifeminute TV, coming out of a wall-mounted flatscreen. The content consists of movie reviews, trivia (how many minutes will it take the Earth to go around the sun in 2014?), as well as brief profiles of up and coming musicians. The clientele in this neighborhood's deatburger are, without exception, to a soul groovy in appearance. a guy in a grey and green striped knit eighties Polo shirt with a pin on the collar. His grey hair is neatly trimmed around the bald top of his head. He uses a toothpick. The delivery guys appear groovy. The young bohemians are groovy. Also mounted on the wall is a bell, with a instructions to ring it if you are satisfied with your "experience." When it's rung by someone as they leave, the bohemians reply with "woo!" Sitting to next to me is a couple. The wive is wearing groovy skinny jeans and a groovy flowered-print nylon knit jacket. There's a bald guy in a jersey for the city's football team, a guy in a black leather coat and black boots. The Ad Council is now on Lifeminute TV. The woman in the print jacket goes up to the counter for something else. She's rapping with the manager, who has horn-rimmed glasses and grey hair which is slicked back. She is telling him that her husband used to work for this deathburger. He tells her that he ran this one previously before running another one. I am laughing, not at any of the patrons, but at both the names and the song titles of the bands on Lifeminute. None of these musicians appear to have ever been anywhere a prison. I am out on the sidewalk now, next to a boulevard and under the bridge for the interstate, on my way to the bank. There is a wind gusting. SUVs and huge pickup trucks are accelerating at green lights as if they are street racing. I glance at one driver in a sport coat and yellow turtleneck. On my way to work, someone else is coming up the sidewalk, on her phone. Even she appears somehow to be in a hurry. I duck into a restaurant. A couple of guys, one of whom holds the door for me, are in sweaters and sunglasses. They remind me of astronauts. I wait unnoticed as a couple of parties are seated before someone notices me, so I can ask the time. I am in a neighborhood of strip mall after strip mall of exclusive franchise shops and exclusive franchise restaurants. This is the playground of the upper class, complete with an appearance by snow bunnies at a sports bar on the middle of the month.
After work, I am on a bus back in my own neighborhood, and a world away from the gleaming traffic of those dust-swept winter streets. We pick up a guy who tells the driver, "No lies. No bullshit. I gave my transfer to some kids who asked me for a dollar." Honest to fucking god? Really? The transit system is now operating on karma? Why not find the kids and let them on instead of this guy. No lies and no bullshit, just a day late and a dollar short. The driver hands him a transfer. "You know what would be cool?" he asks the driver, "Monster truck buses." If you are going to masturbate your way on to the bus, why don't you sit down and shut up? The driver asks him if he knows who Sammy Hagar is. "You know, 'I can't drive 55.'" The guy has "heard the name..." He pulls the ear bud jack out of his player and plays the driver some Police. The driver tells him, "No Talking Heads..." We both get off at the same stop, and he walks away mumbling to himself.
The following morning is another Saturday at 5 am. I am on the sidewalk in front of where I live. I guy I haven't seen before is going my way, and he begins speaking Spanish to me. He's speaking quickly and I have to slow it down in my head. He wants to know if the buses run five days a week. It doesn't sound as if he is from around these parts.
Father Joseph's work includes integrating the Vietnamese community in Denver further into the community. He also wants to...encourage tourist [sic] to...learn about...this group of people who have populated southwest Denver since the 1970s. ...District crime...system they are using...NBR...developed by the FBI. ...a new city DA hopefully should be more inclined to treat...violations of the graffiti laws...more seriously than in the past. The former Westwood Telephone exchange building right across the street from where I live has been purchased and is being renovated. ...vandals broke into the building during the cold spell...and did major damage... - Nextdoor Westwood
...taken alone, a drink called ayahuaiscca, made from..."Bonisteriopsis", will produce visions with a dark bluish-grayish-purplish background interrupted by flashes of light. These...figure in the Indian myths and iconography. The Yukan believe that the plant, a bestower of semen...was born in a flash of light. It would be difficult...to appreciate...cultural intricacies without knowing...hallucinogenic plants and their use. - Davies
...the university would like to see the surrounding commercial districts better reflect the school brand. ...looking to help in any way it can to stop the revolving door of restaurants in the...intersection. "Businesses come in that don't really understand that we are basically gone during holiday vacations and during the summer. ...then to keep seats filled the offer ridiculous lunch specials, then all the beer you can drink after 10p.m., and then there's new owners. The town and gown relationship is important. We recognize that 18-year-olds rent houses and apartments and do dumb things in the neighborhood. Our code of conduct follows them off campus. That's a big stick. We also pay for neighborhood patrols... ...the major part of the building boom that started in the '90s is behind us. Now, we've just to keep our eye on our students..."
"The city has said they're not going to fix the gridlock - they'll try to force people to alternative transit. ...the city is rockin' our world with their lack of concern... ...renters don't become part of the community in the same way as homeowners." - Washington Park Profile, 1/2014
To meet her is to feel nostalgia for the disappearing Protestant ascendancy, for the members of a society that had rules every bit as demanding as the rules of the Old West, the first of which - answer the cards, sit with the elderly, draw out the dull bachelor, invite the homely cousin - was an awesome self-discipline. I was getting married... I would join life. I'd been a lone cowboy riding by...long enough. Now I would stop by the camp fire, pass the coffee, and watch the flames against the fellas' faces... ...where the president says, "Reach for the stars"...that got a very positive response. The word "free"..."free mankind from the prison of nuclear terror." ...the best way to judge our welfare system is the extent to which it frees its people from welfare. ...where the president spoke of the freedom fighters...they didn't know where these countries are... ...the language was so powerful it put them on edge. It made them feel "down." It wasn't positive. - Noonan
The school was later exorcised, with the exception of a single bathroom. The bathroom was exorcised, which apparently had the effect of driving whatever it was into the passageway outside where the servant girls kept their bicycles. - Mysteries, by Colin Wilson, 1979
Another week has begun at 5 am. I am across the street from where I live. A minivan turns the corner. The driver has his window rolled down, and is bundled up. I see this once in a while. I wonder, if the window isn't smashed out, why have it down in the winter. A woman is parked at the gas station. She has her door open, and she is standing and having a smoke. A small chocolate Lab is next to her, and she can be heard from a distance yelling at her dog to "Sit down! Sit down!" The bus headed up the street is usually full of quiet, middle-aged folk. One guy is, this morning, on his phone. "They all have phones. They should be able to set their alarms." He must be speaking of his kids. "They were selling cows. They were auctioning them off." In the neighborhood. Really? "They had the Mexican rodeo." Ah, he was at the annual National Western Stock Show. "What did you do yesterday?" I'm at the train station now, listening to a couple of guys behind me rapidly firing off a variety of self-conscious gang metaphors and inflections.
The day unexpectedly turns in a ten and a half-hour one. I am on a train home. In a seat is a guy in a winter coat, a towel around his neck, and a hoodie draped over his head and shoulders. I spotted him outside before the train showed up. He was staring through wasted eyes. On the train, he lifts his left pant leg and slowly scratches his calf, before he suddenly exclaims, "Oh leg don't fail me now!" He pulls out a fifth of whisky and takes a gulp. I get off the train as he is telling someone about how the nation is isolated "in a bubble." The following day, there I am, back in the land of ties and trucks. I do see plenty of trucks in my own 'hood. But there, all manner of truck and SUV with their large engines, they sound as if they are accelerating, when in fact they are in low gear. And in my part of town on occasion, 30-year-old guys in T- shirts will slow down for middle school girls at the bus stop, and posture with their vehicles. Back where I am this afternoon, the trucks with guys in suits and ties appear oblivious to the world. Guys in their fifties in wide-brimmed hats are discussing business. Young couples manicure their rebelliousness, or their ambitions toward a cutting edge, or whatever. Here among, not the dispossessed but rather the hyper-possessed, there is a distinct lack of hopelessness. And what would happen should the twain ere meet? The morning after, at 5 am, I am back at my usual bus stop. Across the street, at another bus stop, the cleaner is back. Today, the plow is gone from his truck. On the train, I see that the transit system is running ads promoting an expansion of its light rail, known as FasTracks. These ads make me wonder if the transit system feels as though it is in need for public support for the project. "I'm a grandmother," reads one. "I'm a caring neighbor. I am FasTracks. I am RTD. I get out every day and get involved in my community." Personal stories from supposed patrons of the transit system, alongside posed photos. Folks just like...you and me.
The following day is the middle of the week. I am at a train station, awaiting a bus home. The station is located at the edge of a community college campus. Here's a new one for ya. A mellow, middle-aged guy in sandals and socks wanders up to me and asks, "Excuse me sir do you smoke?" Now this is how to bum a smoke. The following morning finds me across the street from where I live. Joining me at the bus stop is a young guy with ear buds on, which does little to prevent him from making his witness. I happen upon him standing out in the street, looking down, down toward the direction of any approaching buses. He has nothing but curses for the bus, as it has not yet arrived. As it approaches, he can barely contain his indignation. "C'mon, make that light. C'mon, drive that piece of shit." He mentions something about this being "another bipolar day." When the bus comes to a stop, he remarks, "I appreciate it I appreciate it." Yet, on the bus he is silent. When we both get off, he has the patience to wait for the 'walk' signal before crossing the street. Here, up the street, the same guy is back cleaning all the bus stops on this corner.
It's another Saturday at 5 am. At the bus stop across the street from where I live is hovering a guy who I've never seen before. He's Caucasian with a red handlebar moustache. I watch him cross the street, over to the opposite building. With a slow, upright stride, he looks in a trashcan before heading for the one next to the gas pump. Along comes a car through the parking lot. He is right in front of the pump, and the car slows to a stop before he gets out of the way. He must have spooked the car because it then leaves. Over on my own side of the boulevard, the bus shows up. As it comes to a stop, another guy I've never seen before walks up. He says out loud, "All you have to do is walk away from the bus." He has a Harley Davidson do rag on his head. He gets on with the rest of us. Hey, I get it. A Harley rider who rides the bus and talks to himself...(?)
At the beginning of another week. I am on a bus to work, much later than usual. Along the short ride to the train station, a young mom and her daughter get on, each with a doughnut. She daughter says something to her mom about wanting to watch TV. Her mom tells her how good it is to watch a network called EWTN. This is the Eternal Word Television Network; Catholic teachings and sermons broadcast out of Atlanta. I discovered it on a local UHF channel some two decades ago, and continued to watch the same station up until a few years ago, when broadcast TV was taken off the airwaves. I wonder where she is able to watch it? After she mentions the channel, she crosses herself. I jump on a train to a station where there is a small coffee shop. Outside is a young couple sitting at a table. It's a very nice day for January. The guy appears to be both older and louder than the girl. He strikes me as possibly homeless and perhaps with mental issues. Next to the table is an American flag mounted on a plastic pole, wedged into a crack in the concrete. I don't recall ever seeing it here before. It has to be his. While I am inside the shop, he comes in for some complimentary water. The girl behind the counter asks him if his water is cool enough. He waits for her to put more ice in the water cooler. After work, I get off of a bus back in my neighborhood, along with four other people. As they head my direction to a bus shelter up the street, they all move together, next to each other. Three guys and a girl. The girl and the guy who does the majority of the talking appear to be a couple. As loud as the guy is, I still can make out only a bit of what he says. He mentions "a string of robberies" somewhere in town. When we all get on a connecting bus, I get a look at the couple. They each appear as if either they have mental issues or may perhaps be drug casualties.
The following morning, I watch a guy shuffling down the sidewalk. With his weather-beaten face, he almost disappears inside of his coat. In his right hand, he is carrying an open cereal box. As I am digging through my bag, another younger, healthier guy comes along and stops to ask me, "Can you spare one?" He thinks I am reaching for a cigarette. I show him that I only have dental floss. I take the bus/to the train/to a stop for another bus. When it comes, another passenger comes from the back and sits down on the seat up front. By his appearance, I am almost sure that he is a college kid. He looks at me for a spell with contempt. (?) He then returns to the back. When he gets off, he very quietly says to me in my ear, "Go - to - hell." He immediately gets off.
'Tis the following morning. I step off the bus at my usual stop up the street. Around the corner comes someone who is...not inebriated and not homeless. He gives off a completely different vibe, or should I say lack thereof. Moments after, I am across the street and passing by my usual bus stop, on my way to the deathburger. In front of me is a little guy who takes a seat on the bench. When I go by, he says, "Morning!" in almost a shout. When I get back to the stop, I see the guy who I saw yesterday with the cereal box in his hand. He shuffles past again, this time with a plastic grocery bag full of cans. I suddenly recognize him as the regular from the deathburger, who I saw ithere looking in the trash. Perhaps he was looking for cans. He pauses at a flagstone wall to pick up and examine a discarded can. After work, I end up at a train station. I stand waiting to get on a bus. Talking to the driver is someone with an expired transfer. Everyone has a story. "I just got out the hospital," he says. Yeah, and also...your transfer is expired. The driver has convinced him to pay the fare to get a new transfer. The driver then has to tell him to sit down. The guy has been hustling and bullshitting the driver so long, nowt he driver appears concerned about staying on schedule.
"This is America: The Knights of Columbus...The Business and Professional Women of America...the Bible study group. ...a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky." That litany of organizations - reading it still gives me a chill. That's the America I know, maybe the America you know. That's what they went to on Wednesday nights... - Noonan
...the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce awarded...the Athena award - a predominantly straight, white organization of business "men" were honoring a lesbian for being a "warrior for business." - Out Front, 1/15-31/2014
..."how" is it possible to have meaning and honor in work? to put wealth to some real use? to have a high standard of living of whose quality we are not ashamed?...to have a use of leisure that is not a dismaying waste of a hundred-million adults? ...perhaps...create a culture again. Since we have the technlogy, the capital, and the labor, why should we not have livable cities? The essence of human nature is to be pretty indefinitely malleable. "Man," as C Wright Mills suggests, is what suits a particular type of society in a particular historical stage. This fateful idea, invented from time to time by societies... - "Growing Up Absurd", by Paul Goodman, 1956
On Saturday morning, at 5 am at my usual bus stop, the grey goatee guy is coming along and headed toward the deathburger. Only rather than carrying a cereal box or a bag of cans, this morning he is walking in the street instead of the sidewalk. The traffic behind him is making a right. Fortunately, none of the cars require "his" lane. The following Tuesday is less than a a week before Super Bowl Sunday. When the temperature drops to single digits in my neighborhood and there is snow everywhere, the trucks and SUVs which have raised suspensions and huge tires come out to practically drag race. I read somewhere that, down my street, a telephone pole has fallen down. I haven't heard of such a thing outside of a town hit by a tornado. And also, of course, my own street. The district police commander warned the residents not to leave their vehicles idling on cold mornings. One such vehicle was stolen and used in a homicide. At the deathburger this morning is a guy who is sometimes there at 5 am. He claims to be 73 but looks younger. He used to drive an old truck with Jesus stickers. Today, he is talking to a couple of young guys who he has just met. He tells one guy with passion, "They're not doin' it. They need to stop...what is it? The Tariffs!" When he remembers the word 'tariffs' he claps his hands together. "Small business doesn't stand a chance against the imports! And they're not doin' it!" He then asks the one young guy his name. A couple of mornings later, he is back again, chatting up the girl behind the counter. On top of a knit cap, he wearing backwards a baseball cap which reads, "Jesus is My Boss." I have to lean in front of him to place my order. He sits down with another regular and mentions that he listens to Mark Levine's Wall Street Report, "On 700. Radio channel. AM. He comes on at 7 am. Boy that's...a really good business report."
I get off work early. All our customers are in New Jersey, for a long weekend watching our city's football team in the Super Bowl. I grab a late lunch at a fairly new neighborhood steakhouse. It's my first time here. The menu has steaks and burgers, as well as 39 flavors of smoothies. The flavors are written in chalk on a big blackboard. The host and cashier both appear to be Vietnamese. The other patrons are a Mexican family. Behind the counter is the establishment's name in lime neon, as well as a shelf with a big glass sculpture in a transparent case. Other than the word "cow" in the name, the place is void of any reference to the old west, or any notices of the annual Western Stock Show which ended just three days ago. Not a horseshoe nor a prairie landscape. There is a single directory in Vietnamese which the host reads as he sits and waits to seat customers and serve food. On one wall is mounted a flat screen TV tuned to ESPN. The place has few windows, and is illuminated by small wall and ceiling lamps.
