Day Two Driving is Done.
Just into Chicago from Cleveland, which, incidently is a cool city. Dan showed us an amazing time and I can appreciate how mellow it is compared to a bigger show like NYC. Relaxing with some Internet before grilling out tonight.

USA Boundary Tour

Day One Flies By.
True to form my packing sprawl finally found it's way into my pack about 30 minutes before departure. I'm starting to realize that othr ppl don't travel this way. But as it happens, planning details melt into the fabric of the journey and the trip takes on a life of it's own.
This one is going to have a good life.

Anticipation

They laughed hard,
but I wasn't joking.
I really do consider one static year 'settling down.'
The hilarity of my accidental joke to them...
shocked me.

How differently we view the world.
I, whose sense of staying shifts just like my breathing.
And they whose house and job like walls
keep out the messy doubts of drifting.

We live on different planets.

Every day here, I feel more like a cruelly wizened outcast.
Stable jobs smell like prison cells to me.
But oh, for a reliable paycheck... maybe a shred of benefit.

We are told to live to work!
To get that awesome job and be enslaved.
Work to live, and you'll be punished.
Who are you to demand flexibility.
Pitted against each other,
gotta do better.
I'll work longer hours,
I'll never smell the flowers.

*I Sigh Alot At Planes*
Every piercing picture on my idle computer screen,
maims my fading memory...
reminds me of a dream,
that really happened.

This coulda been foreseen.
With such anticipation for such fleeting freedom,
I was an explosion.
Sprinting simultaneously in twenty-two directions.
And wound up right where I began...
with no less mysteries to understand.

It's nice to have a home that isn't a hostel.
I need this year to settle.
But I'll be off again,
just waiting for a change in wind.

Of mice and men

Leaned over the bar...
he was unshaven,
and his eyes squeaked mischief as he asked...
"Wanna see my little friend?"

Hands moved beneath his shirt.
He's no flasher, I thought, maybe it's a puppy.
But my face did not react.
"Why not." I said nonchalantly.

That's when I met Luanne,
the sewer rat.
This eccentric intellectual
was a rat enthusiast.

Ah the hobbies.

I say, "From looking at ya man...
I never would have guessed
you had a rodent on your person."

"That's nothing,
I've taken her on airplanes before.
Rat's don't set off metal detectors"

Wow, I thought, Wow.

Switching Gears

Rereading sparks reflection.
---------------------------------------
Shocking feeling:
To realize you stand
over your own corpse.

An older version of myself
has passed,
like shedding snake skin.
Outgrown...
the remains are cast aside.

I recognize the face at my feet...
decaying, as a memory at rest.
Dead lips part... in fear, I start.
"Bury me"
pleads my poor old body.

And so I do.
-------------------------------------

Returning to the Southern United States has been a rocky landing.
Like,
who would put enormous speed bumps on a jet's runway!?

The observations, conversations, and general maturation of ideas
during my sprint abroad...
provided plenty of momentum
for a smart sting when I
walloped back into America's concrete defenses
face first.

Pissed,
I naturally grabbed the nearest pick-axe to pummel the offending cement
in a fit of rage and frustration.
Vis-a-vis the tone of my recent posts.

I don't make a good political pundit,
wouldn't want to be one anyway.
Vomiting venom onto my keyboard
doesn't exactly complement my style.
And is not gratifying.

I have two different kinds of writing.
Starting now, my metaphorical spitting shall be grounded
with other such rants in my journals.
The private ones.
At least until they can count to ten
and learn to play smart.

So expect my political jabs to flirt in and out,
as opposed to taking center stage.

In its place, I intend to continue writing stories as before.
Now from my home in Durham.
With occasional wanderings, of course.
Yes, the unthinkable has happened.
Nate is Nesting.

So to my readers,
Thanks for suffering through my soapbox sermons.

I now present:
The Diaries, Observations, and Musings of your Barman.

The Inevitable Trial

People are afraid,
Wealthy customers frazzled
Approach my bar with purpose.
Booze is recession proof.

I try being sympathetic...
me: How's shit?
them: I still have a job.
me: Alright! So shit's good then.

I lost nothing in this lemming run.
I have no 401K, no money in stocks,
not even a savings account.

Nevertheless, I tease out drunken opinions
From the political left and right.
Consensus: group consciousness has
resolved itself to wait and see.

See if Obama can say "ta-da!"

I know this song and dance.
Eight years ago,
The herd was terrified of terrorist,
So Bush got a blank check.
Now in Obamaland,
The evil's the economy.

Granted, our current leader's hands are more capable than the last.

That said, I have to call out the President
For encouraging the nation to move on too quickly.

We came damn close to a dictatorship... where the commander in chief made unilateral decisions on torture, personal liberty, and secret military actions.

This is no witch hunt... we need to find out exactly what was going on.
So this type of thing can't happen again.

Somebody in Washington apparently had a hearing on Wednesday about forming a truth commission to get to the bottom of things. Declassified documents revealed that a US citizen on US soil had been held for five years by the military with no trial.

Obama's assertion to just move on is meant to keep things friendly, I know that.
But this is the same short-sightedness that got us into this mess.
A country can't just barrel blindly forward and pretend it didn't do anything wrong.
That's Bush's non-reflective personality, not America's.
We must hold our leaders accountable:
Bush aint God. And even if he was, I would say the same thing:
Put that Asshole on trial!
This truth commission will only be effective if it has the power to prosecute.

And here's the really cool part.
If we don't prosecute Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, and the rest of them...
Then smart people from other countries will.
Our leaders fucked with international human rights law,
As much as they fucked with domestic personal liberty.

I don't know about you,
but I'd rather put ole' yeller down myself.


http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/5/lawmakers_begin_debate_on_commission

How the Bush Administration made me an Alcoholic

I was a freshman in college in 2001...

Didn't know what the World Trade Center was...
Because I was a child in a foreign country...
Without Upper-Lower-White-Middle-Class American news
or Upper-Lower-Middle-Class American people around.

I didn't care that I didn't know.
Blissful ignorance was the only thing Upper-Lower-Middle-Class American
about me.

What started as a radio
rushed in and mounted like an antenna'd idol
in chemistry lab,
Turned into multiple mutually-worshipped
televisions.
Each plugged in and improvised
all along my campus walk.
They sprouted tiny crowds...
obediently bowing their heads.
One woman was crying.

At first I thought the plane was a glider or a tiny two personed doctor-wing.
Why else would a plane accidentally fly into a large building?

I had no idea that passenger jet liners were actually
stealable usable fuel-loaded, winged bombs.
I had no idea that the WTO was a symbol
of American economic neo-colonialism abroad.
I had no idea that the attack was not only predictable
but warrented.

I found all that out later.

It was not an attack on America.
It was an attack on America's greedy self-appointed owners.
Once again...
Poor men are fighting off an attack on the Rich.
An attack on years of shitty CIA
sneaky-assed selfish
cock-sucking shortsighted
foreign policy.

Think about it,
everything I just wrote is more offensive than
language ever will be.
Yes, even the fuck word.

Bush didn't see it coming because he didn't think
America was capable of wrong.
Just like he thinks about himself.

That's what happens when the History Of Golden Unicorns is taught
Instead of the history of American History.

I saw the building fall, people died live
for me on a big screen
The news anchors were cuming their pants live
for me in Hi-Def.
I was sitting alone
back row of an auditorium.
There hadn't been anything else to do...
my classes were canceled.
And so I saw it
all come down,
Watched my fantasy world go pop,
and thank _insert-dead-guy-of-your-choice-here_ for it
cause I deplored it.

As a believer in the History of Golden Unicorns,
I had voted for Bush in '00.

* I will never forgive myself for that *

I had voted with my parents because Bush was a Christian...
and so was I.

My world view was a tree
with pretty leaves that changed color
in season.
I became very large suddenly and
pulled up my tree
by the roots.

Grew another tree.
Taller, stronger, brighter, more beautiful...
But much Sadder.
A Weeping Strong Tree.

I learned how to self-medicate.

It was easy to distance myself from this land.
America was as foreign to me as Africa.

I was the UN the ANTI
Amerikkka.

But now I see
America needs a voice like me.

Like the rando who accidentally insinuated
that Americans were blue-haired, blonde-eyed
un-tye-dyed.
Arianated...
Made me realize I hated
it when people told fibs...
without knowin it.

I AM American... and I am taking it back...
out of uncapable hands.

Back from Bush
who made it patriotic to invade
Like a band-aid
out of pain.
Cool to use bomb-smoke to screen...
Who tortured...
TORTURED... a brown farmer from Afghanistan
brought in by ex-Taliban.
but somehow forgot
to waterboard Madoff.

American Foreign Policy = Rape the Unrepresented, Undefended.

This Prince is so detached
He can't hide his nepotistical ass.
He said FEMA did a solid.
He said Mission Accomplished.

He wanted to help people in this "part of the world"
standing in New Orleans, with sleeves rolled up.

You can take the businessman out of the government,
but you can't take the business out of anything.

A guy once screamed at me...
"America is the best country!"
He believed it Fair,
Had never gone anywhere.
Expert.
Like our President.

Bush, I didn't know how to deal with you.
I drank a lot, cussed a lot.

But I'm finding my voice.
So watch out.

Upcoming: Why Bush Should Be Arrested and Put on Trial.