26 September 2006
Oh the Grand Avenue Bus Humanity
They might as well just let everybody start smoking on the Grand Avenue bus. The humanity moving up this commercial avenue to downtown is resolutely unrepentant. There are the dumb pretty girls dumbly talking in the back. The small foreigner with tucked in shirt. The old man who enters by the industrial railroad tracks, no buildings near here. A foreign couple with big feet cuddle against the pungency. When they get off she has to catch her breath while he comforts her. There is a certain insouciance in this particular run of the "Dirty Six Five." It might have something to do with the pile of tobacco behind a seat in the back (discarded in order to make a blunt.)
The crazy bearded hobo arrives at the edge of downtown. He wants to say hi to everybody. The drifter with the long matted hair looks down. Crazy does not like to deal with crazy.
The pretty dumb girls prattle on. Huge racked hipster chick gets on by the college. Pretty dumb girls get off. We should all light up on the Grand Avenue bus. For at the end of the line we have been through something. Something that is not easy articulated but marks us indelibly with its insights into humanity from which we are normally shielded.
The crazy bearded hobo arrives at the edge of downtown. He wants to say hi to everybody. The drifter with the long matted hair looks down. Crazy does not like to deal with crazy.
The pretty dumb girls prattle on. Huge racked hipster chick gets on by the college. Pretty dumb girls get off. We should all light up on the Grand Avenue bus. For at the end of the line we have been through something. Something that is not easy articulated but marks us indelibly with its insights into humanity from which we are normally shielded.
25 September 2006
Hank "Jumbo" Sryah's About Town
Dateline: Eastern European country's cultural pride street festival
People from the homeland do not look like you are me. They are more rugged, more sly, more white-socked and pony-tailed. They enjoy hearty life affirming activities like cigarettes, meaty dumplings and pina coladas made using the whole pineapple as the cup. Needless to say there is dancing of a mating-ritual and amazing-dream-coat nature. Not bad looking youth go through their paces in the Sunday afternoon sun. Dare I say I have found the best place to be at this given moment? Happens so often.
Real traveling carnival carneys are at the helm of a frankly terrifying whirlybird ride that takes you 360 degrees in all directions. The carneys look authentically felonious. The screams reach out over the apartment buildings. This festival has had some bad luck the last few days due to rain, so it is nice that the street is swarming with ticket buyers. I see the priest, collar unbuttoned ebullient drinking a caffeinated beverage. So I think the situation has been saved for this Eastern European country's cultural pride festival and local church fundraiser.
But how many tickets for that bewitching bescarved lass who dances in medieval costume? Forthwith to squire her behind the diesel generator for what diversions we may find. I fear it will take a large roll of tickets to win the heart of that enchanted becheeked embodiment of all that is good in this world.
But we must go. The fair ends abruptly at a sleepy Sunday side street.
Dateline: Baby teen whispers under a pine tree.
I sit at a high window enjoying a filament filled sunset, electric lips of clouds. A pine tree between me and the porch next door. These kids are horsing around down below. It winnows to three girls and a guy. They are around 12, 13 years old. I can hear them flirt and banter and see through the obscuring pine boughs that they are unable to sit still. It is funny to remember when stupidity, sex and screaming were all mixed up into that ferocious state called innocence.
The girls did take pictures of their underwear for a cell phone camera while the guy watched. Parents - Tell your kids not to undress for cell phone camera phones. You never know where those things end up.
Dateline: Greek luncheonette run by Mexicans on that busy corner.
What can a well-run lunch cafe do for the soul? Enlighten it. Ennoble it. Nourish it along with stomach. What must go in a turkey, ham, bacon and cheese club panini? The answer is bacon - a firm (but not overwhelming) layer of crispy bacon. Then add ham, turkey and cheese on grilled sour dough with ramikans of barbecue and mayo on the side. Fries come with a spray starch coating that tastes like you just made love to a foreigner for the first time - dirty yet liberated for the first time in your life.
Overtip lunch waiters who are good. An extra couple buck to you does not make much difference but to him they can make his day, both emotionally and romantically because think about it, he wants to go squire his lady about the town and later insert his hot refried beans into her supple tortilla refulgence, and that requires some dinero, no senor?
Dateline: Family owned Italian joint in a rainstorm.
Drink blue martinis during a deluge. As the tropical low has made us a bit unformed. Sit with the smokers by the front window. The skylight overhead rumbles with sheets of rain. Here you can sometimes make a rash decision that ends up with sour cream wedges and bemeated meat based sandwiches. Because your ass will wake up in the middle of the night going, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing and drank that blue martini, not to mention bread and hot marinara sauce before the meal."
Can you once take something home you filthy animal?
People from the homeland do not look like you are me. They are more rugged, more sly, more white-socked and pony-tailed. They enjoy hearty life affirming activities like cigarettes, meaty dumplings and pina coladas made using the whole pineapple as the cup. Needless to say there is dancing of a mating-ritual and amazing-dream-coat nature. Not bad looking youth go through their paces in the Sunday afternoon sun. Dare I say I have found the best place to be at this given moment? Happens so often.
Real traveling carnival carneys are at the helm of a frankly terrifying whirlybird ride that takes you 360 degrees in all directions. The carneys look authentically felonious. The screams reach out over the apartment buildings. This festival has had some bad luck the last few days due to rain, so it is nice that the street is swarming with ticket buyers. I see the priest, collar unbuttoned ebullient drinking a caffeinated beverage. So I think the situation has been saved for this Eastern European country's cultural pride festival and local church fundraiser.
But how many tickets for that bewitching bescarved lass who dances in medieval costume? Forthwith to squire her behind the diesel generator for what diversions we may find. I fear it will take a large roll of tickets to win the heart of that enchanted becheeked embodiment of all that is good in this world.
But we must go. The fair ends abruptly at a sleepy Sunday side street.
Dateline: Baby teen whispers under a pine tree.
I sit at a high window enjoying a filament filled sunset, electric lips of clouds. A pine tree between me and the porch next door. These kids are horsing around down below. It winnows to three girls and a guy. They are around 12, 13 years old. I can hear them flirt and banter and see through the obscuring pine boughs that they are unable to sit still. It is funny to remember when stupidity, sex and screaming were all mixed up into that ferocious state called innocence.
The girls did take pictures of their underwear for a cell phone camera while the guy watched. Parents - Tell your kids not to undress for cell phone camera phones. You never know where those things end up.
Dateline: Greek luncheonette run by Mexicans on that busy corner.
What can a well-run lunch cafe do for the soul? Enlighten it. Ennoble it. Nourish it along with stomach. What must go in a turkey, ham, bacon and cheese club panini? The answer is bacon - a firm (but not overwhelming) layer of crispy bacon. Then add ham, turkey and cheese on grilled sour dough with ramikans of barbecue and mayo on the side. Fries come with a spray starch coating that tastes like you just made love to a foreigner for the first time - dirty yet liberated for the first time in your life.
Overtip lunch waiters who are good. An extra couple buck to you does not make much difference but to him they can make his day, both emotionally and romantically because think about it, he wants to go squire his lady about the town and later insert his hot refried beans into her supple tortilla refulgence, and that requires some dinero, no senor?
Dateline: Family owned Italian joint in a rainstorm.
Drink blue martinis during a deluge. As the tropical low has made us a bit unformed. Sit with the smokers by the front window. The skylight overhead rumbles with sheets of rain. Here you can sometimes make a rash decision that ends up with sour cream wedges and bemeated meat based sandwiches. Because your ass will wake up in the middle of the night going, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing and drank that blue martini, not to mention bread and hot marinara sauce before the meal."
Can you once take something home you filthy animal?
